Osaka vs The Space Monster
by X to the Zoltan
Summary: Osaka is the chosen one, destined to save the world from evil! Actually, not. C'mon, girls, improvise!
1. Strangeness Afoot

"Good morning, Mr. Tadakichi!"

Chiyo hopped lightly from her bed, ever the incorrigible morning person. She threw her room's blinds open on a beautiful pastel sky. It was the part of the day she loved best; the cool, still air and unusual quiet of these hours made it seem as though the whole world was holding its breath.

Mr. Tadakichi followed her through her routine as she did up her pigtails and started making the day's lunch. She felt a bit like curry, but after the way Tomo bugged out last time… oh, well. If Tomo bugging out was grounds to stop doing something, the world would soon grind to a halt. As usual, her breakfast was made up of filched ingredients.

On her way to get some Sambhar Powder from the spice rack, Chiyo noticed a blueprint lying on the kitchen table. This wasn't unusual; her father often worked late and didn't always remember to put documents away. She glanced it over in passing-then stopped in her tracks, backpedaled slowly and stared at it.

"What on Earth…?" At first she thought it was some kind of joke, but she noticed the Mihama Industries corporate crest in the corner. So the blueprint was genuine… but she didn't think her father's company took commissions like _this_. Heck, she didn't think _any _real company would.

So engrossed was she with this strange document that she was almost late in waking her parents. As her father came down the stairs straightening his tie, Chiyo hailed him from the stove. "Father, may I ask you something about work?"

"Sure, anything."

"Does your company ever take jobs from the military?"

"Haven't for years, why?"

"I was just wondering who wanted the tank with the… uh, the laser guns."

"Wh-_what?_" Mr. Mihama rushed to the table and slapped his forehead. "Oh, shi-crap! I left the-!" He hurriedly collected himself. "Um… nobody. Nobody wants it. It's… it's just a hobby drawing. Just science fiction, you know?"

"What about the crest?"

"Fun little detail. It's nothing."

She turned back and looked at him earnestly. "But you're not supposed to put the crest on things that aren't company business. Couldn't you get in trouble with the board or…?"

Mr. Mihama laughed heartily and ruffled her hair. "Don't you worry about it. We wouldn't want Daddy to have to chloroform you, now would we?"

She blinked, unsure that he was joking. Even unnerved, though, Chiyo was quick on the uptake. "I… I think I just forgot what we were talking about."

"That's the spirit!" her father said approvingly. "Have a great day, sweetie."

"You… you, too." She watched wide-eyed as he rolled the blueprint up, stuffed it in a tube, looked around furtively (in his own kitchen!) and skulked off like a thief in the night. "And he wonders why I never introduce my friends to him…" Chiyo sighed.

* * *

The cat stared at her from his wall, daring her, just _daring_ her to reach out and touch him. His ears were smoothed back submissively, eyes innocent and inviting as his tail swished indolently through the cool air. His mouth was closed and small, giving no hint of the satanic grin he usually gave at her approach.

Could today be different? Could it possibly be _the day_? Sakaki met the feline's gaze with a soft sort of suspicion. Odds were he was merely biding his time like a spider, waiting for his victims to draw near… aw, but who could suspect such a cute face? She reached out slowly, hesitantly, fingers just brushing his soft gray fur—

_CHOMP!_

Sakaki hardly winced. The cat shot her his patented evil smile and bounded away happily, leaving his victim to ponder her misfortune. As he moved, though, for the barest of instants, Sakaki thought she saw something in the near distance behind him. Sunglasses?

The figure vanished before she got a good look at it; all Sakaki was left with was a vague impression of a flat, hard face above a cheap suit. Had it been watching her? Though it was probably just her imagination, her scalp tingled with that awful "eyes-on-the-back-of-your-head" feeling as she continued towards school.

"Hi Ms. Sakaki!" Chiyo piped from right next to her.

Sakaki just about jumped out of her skin, but her poker-face didn't betray the tiniest hint of surprise as she replied softly. "Hi."

"Isn't this a beautiful morning?"

Caught up by Chiyo's infectious good cheer, Sakaki soon forgot about the mysterious stranger. It was just as well that she didn't notice the three other menacing black-suits that cropped up along their route; it would have made her a paranoid wreck.

Osaka was late in joining them. (Well, later than usual.) It had been an odd morning for her as well, though fortunately no glowering yakuza-types were involved. "Ms. Sakaki, Chiyo-chan, look what I found!"

Her friends turned in trepidation. Being subjected to the objects of the Osakan gal's enthusiasm was often similar to a trip through the Twilight Zone, complete with narration by Rod Serling. (And wouldn't you know it? They're even going to get aliens this time!)

It seemed innocent enough; she held a pearly ovoid about twice the size of a marble between her thumb and forefinger, glimmering with tiny swirls of blue and green as it turned in her fingers. "It's really pretty…" Chiyo admired. "What is it, Ms. Osaka? Some kind of stone?"

"Dunno," Osaka pocketed it and they set out again. "I just saw it in the grass and picked it up." It was an unlikely thing for a girl who could walk obliviously through a Mexican Standoff to notice; perhaps fate was involved. "It looked like a fossilized mushroom, but now I think maybe it's an egg."

"Why's that?"

"When I went to pick it up, these two little voices said, 'Please don't take the egg!' But then I looked around an' I didn't see anyone, so maybe they were just in my head."

"Well, you might have imagined them…" Chiyo said doubtfully.

"Thing is, they don't usually sound like that," Osaka said, more to herself than to anyone else. "They must be recruiting."

* * *

A sort of surreal feeling followed all three girls into the classroom, but the bustle and clamor of their classmates before school started chased it away. Ms. Yukari seemed to be late, probably because _Grand Theft Auto: Tokyo_ came out that day.

"Yeah, it's nice," Yomi said politely as Osaka showed off her stone/egg/fossilized mushroom. "Better not let Tomo see it, though. You know how she is with shiny things." The smaller girl nodded sagely, completely missing the fact that her friend was joking.

"What about shiny things?" Tomo asked loudly, less than a foot behind her.

"Ack!" Yomi flinched in surprise. "Gahh…! What'd you do that for, you idiot? You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Better luck next time," Osaka said absently.

"It's my top secret ninja art! I don't want to get out of practice." Tomo dropped an arm across her shoulders. "Y'know, I could have killed you four times before you noticed me just then."

"Why don't we see how many times I can kill _you_?" Yomi growled, rubbing the bridge of her nose. As with most of her death threats, this one went ignored.

"Where's Kagura? I got _GTA Tokyo_ at midnight and I gotta rub it in her face." This was bad news. Tomo didn't need any more encouragement to go on a murderous rampage, rob a bank, steal a sports car and lead the police on a half-hour chase before careening into Tokyo bay.

"She's in Aomori for a swim-meet," Yomi replied.

"Damn!"

"Hey, Tomo," Osaka suddenly asked, "If you're a ninja, you know how to snap people's necks in one move, right?"

Tomo drew herself up. "But of course!"

"Can you teach me?"

"Uh..." Tomo looked at her sideways. "Sorry, it's… secret."

"What about ninja logs, then? If I threw a letter opener at your head, would a log appear to take the hit while you escaped?"

"That depends. Do you have a letter opener?"

Before Osaka could respond that yes, as a matter of fact she did, Yukari threw the door open and stormed into the room. "Sit down and shut up," she ordered tersely. Responding more to her tone than her words, the class did so quickly.

Yukari cast a glance at the seating chart and glowered over the lot of them. "You're all here," she said sullenly.

"The game store was out, wasn't it, Ms. Yukari?" Tomo asked loudly. All she got for her concern was a piece of chalk rifled into her forehead.

Sakaki watched all of this in silent amusement. The whole scene was so natural, so par for the course, and she had so completely forgotten about the morning's oddities, that what happened next caught her completely flat-footed. The principal's voice suddenly crackled over the PA, sounding strangely urgent. "Teachers, please gather your classes and report to the sub-sub basement to… uh… collect your paychecks. Like, _right now_."

"We have a sub-sub basement?" a student asked softly.

Yukari surged to her feet, mood instantly improved. "All right! Money!" She paused in confusion. "But why do I have to take all of _you_?"

"Ms. Yukari? I think it might be a code phrase," Chiyo suggested tentatively.

"Oh, yeah. What was that one for again?" Yukari's eyes unfocused for a second or two while she tried to remember, but her thought was interrupted by the noise of Ms. Kurosawa's class filing by outside. "Yo, Nyamo! What was that code for?"

Kurosawa paused outside of the door, cast a concerned glance at the students, then walked swiftly across the room and whispered in Yukari's ear. "Uh huh… oh, is _that _it? Okay…"

As the other teacher left, Yukari turned back to the class and clapped her hands. "All right, everybody gather your things and…" she suddenly blanched as the realization of what Kurosawa had said finally hit her. Before anybody could ask what was wrong, she suddenly sprinted from the room. "_We're all gonna die!_ Every man for themselves! _AUUGHHH!_"

The class was left blinking in her wake. Thoroughly unsettled, they filtered after in search of the mysterious sub-sub basement.


	2. Strangeness in Flight

It wasn't long before the entire school was gathered in the sub-sub basement area. After an eerie trek through the tangled, cluttered, dank sub-basement, classes filed one-by-one down a narrow stairway into a wide, clean, well-lit lounge-ish area.

There was a series of such rooms that could have held perhaps another forty people before things would get uncomfortable; as it was, the students were spread out over at least three generations of the school's old furniture. Some of the tables held board games and old magazines, but most went unused in the tense atmosphere.

The teachers had gathered at the far end around an old radio, talking quietly but urgently. Sakaki sat a few feet away on a maroon couch that must have spent its early years in the teacher's lounge, an unabashedly frightened Chiyo to one side and a mellow, unconcerned Osaka on the other.

"This place…" Sakaki murmured. She didn't complete the thought verbally; nobody seemed to be listening anyway. These rooms, and doubtless hundreds of others all over Tokyo, had been set up in preparation for whatever horrible events were going down. It was nice to see they were being looked after, but she would have liked some warning.

"It must be the Soviets," Osaka suggested, turning the egg over in her hands. "Or do you suppose the Mongols are invading again? Maybe the ice caps melted and a tidal wave is smashing Tokyo as we sp-!"

"Osaka, _please!_" Chiyo protested. "How can you joke around at a time like this?"

"Why not? Is it time to panic already? Just look at Tomo."

The wildcat idiot stood atop a round table in the center of their room, an arranged checkerboard at her feet. "Okay! I'll whoop any ass in this room!" she howled. "Who's up?"

"Yeah, but she's…" Chiyo floundered. "She's… Tomo."

"And I'm Osaka. Ta each their own, eh?"

"I-I just wish you wouldn't… be so…"

Osaka met the younger girl's scared eyes, suddenly contrite. Chiyo _was_ just a kid after all, and probably didn't need to hear someone mocking their predicament. "I'm sorry… but, but I'm sure everything'll be alright. Just you wait."

The three of them fell into silence, letting the muted babble of several hundred displaced students wash over them. Though she tried not to, Chiyo found herself eavesdropping on the teachers behind them. (To be fair to her, they weren't doing a very good job of keeping their voices down.)

"…without any warning! It's outrageous!" a teacher whispered angrily. "Haven't they ever heard of sonar?"

"This caught everyone by surprise," Kurosawa soothed, "We should be worried about what to tell _them_." As always, her concern was first for the students. "We have to be careful about this."

"We've never had to…" Mr. Ogawa paused, "Wait a sec, where's Tanizaki?"

"Locked herself in the bathroom," someone answered. "Forget about her. What do we tell the kids?"

"The truth," Mr. Kimura said in that soft, creepy, scene-stopping way of his. "We have nothing else to say. They have a right to know."

"I agree," Kurosawa put in. "But the final say is with the principal… Mr. Honada?"

"Unbelievable…" Mr. Honada shook his head, "That this should be happening now… just like fifty years ago…" That ticked at Chiyo's mind, but before the idea could form, Sakaki spoke up. "Listen."

"What is it?"

"It's… I don't know…" the tall girl's brow furrowed. "Faint. It's gone now… no… there. Do you hear?"

Osaka closed her eyes and leaned back. "Yeah… yeah, I heard it, too."

"What?" Chiyo looked worriedly between them. "What is it?"

"It sounds…" Osaka considered. "It sounds like somebody took a glove coated in resin and ran it over a contrabass." She opened her eyes to see the others staring at her blankly. "And then played the sound backwards."

"Er… what… what does that sound like?" Chiyo asked.

Osaka shrugged.

"It's an animal," Sakaki realized. "It's…"

"VICTORY!" Tomo shrieked, upending the checkerboard and sending pieces everywhere. "King me, fool!" Her opponent shook his head and left before the coming torrent of verbal abuse could crash down on his unworthy head. "You can't handle the Takino-nator!"

"Ahem… excuse me." Mr. Ogawa held up his hands and silence descended, so sudden and oppressive that even Tomo shut up. "Can everybody hear me? Alright. As you've, as you've probably guessed, we're not down here getting our paychecks." This got a few weak chuckles that grew when Kurosawa threw an 'aw, shucks' gesture behind him. "Yeah… we've taken shelter because, about twenty minutes ago… the creature known as Godzilla has appeared in Tokyo bay."

Dead. Silence.

"I… I don't know what else to say." Ogawa glanced back at the other teachers, then settled for, "Keep to the shelter for now. The radio will, uh, tell us what's up, there's a special G-Force frequency or something… we got it?" Kurosawa made an 'OK' with her hand. "Great! Great, that's… uh, that's it, I guess." He sat down.

Again. Dead. Silence.

"I'm… I'm going to go and get Yukari out of the bathroom," Kurosawa said awkwardly, standing and picking her way through the students to exit.

A few more seconds passed before the room fairly exploded. How would _you _react to the news that a hundred-meter tall, radioactive death-ray spewing prehistoric monster was loose in your hometown? Whatever your answer, there was probably a student in that mass that you could identify with.

Not many would admit to reacting like Chiyo, who folded in on herself, tears beading under her eyelashes. Sakaki put an arm around the trembling girl's shoulders and drew her close, offering not inane reassurances but only her presence, which Chiyo accepted gladly.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the inky reaches of space, a (naturally saucer-shaped) vessel cut through the void towards our small blue planet! (1) If it were to slow in its mad whirling, one would be able to make out the Armada of Planet X's fearsome crest on its shining hull, a skull with angry eyes gripping a blood-dripping sword in its pointy teeth. Clearly, these were people who believed in making an impression.

The bridge was crewed by men who looked human except that they had (gasp!) blue skin and white hair. Currently, things were a little messy; the mechanics had set up a bank of cameras (rather, their strange alien equivalents) facing the great curving viewports at the bridge's fore.

The alien commander, Prince Xolarus, stood impressively before them. He was tall and princely, his face hard and sharp but somehow benevolent, framed by long silver hair. He wore a golden cape over a black uniform, but instead of the Armada's horrible logo, his held the family's crest of a purple sword with wings.

"People of Earth," he said in a deep, impressive voice, making a grand gesture towards the distant world behind him. "I am your new ruler." After savoring the effect, he suddenly slouched a little and turned to his staff. "How was that?"

"Not bad, not bad," his Second, a heavyset little fellow named Xethnex, said. "You might work on your inflection."

"_Peo_ple of Earth? People of _Earth?_ Peo_ple_ of… Earrth?"

"Never mind, you did fine. Seeing your alien visage should shock them into listening anyway."

"Unless they laugh," the Third-in-Command muttered under his breath.

"Shut up, Xoltan! No one likes you!" Xethnex yelled, then turned back to the prince. "In all honesty, I think we're ready to go."

"I dunno… I still feel like we're missing something," Xolarus looked around. "Um… a prop or something."

"Like a staff or a scepter?" the Second suggested.

"Oh, but that would be tacky…" Xoltan muttered.

"Goddammit, Xoltan, you're out of your element!" Xethnex slapped him. "I know what we can use… a pet. One of your dragons?"

Xolarus smiled. "I would like that very much. Bring me Xcisha. I mean… Xkisha? Xixxsha?" It was an ironclad law among the people of Planet X that you should never correct the Prince's pronunciation. It saved him much embarrassment, but unfortunately it also sometimes left him out in the cold.

As a courier went out to fetch the dragon, another of the Prince's staff appeared at his elbow. He was a short, fox-faced man that crouched atop a bank of consoles like a gargoyle. This was Agent Xond, head of the covert operations on Earth. "My prince?"

"Ack!" Xolarus clutched at his chest. "Oh… good day, Xond. How goes your search?"

As tradition demanded, the prince would choose his bride from among the conquered people; Xolarus counted himself lucky that he wasn't subjugating the Cockroach People of Space Hunter Nebula M (2) or some such.

"We have a few possibilities in mind. Now, you wanted one from this island of… Japan, right?" Xond struggled with the alien pronunciation. It'd taken him months to stop saying Xapan. "Why are we taking Japan first, anyway?"

"Why not?" Xolarus didn't want to admit that he'd blindfolded himself and thrown a dart at a spinning globe.

"Fair enough. As a final check, what are your criteria again?"

"Okay…" the Prince stroked his chin. "Beautiful goes without saying, right? Right. She should be tall, but not taller than me. Dark hair is nice, 'cause it's so exotic… on that note, blue eyes would be cool, too. Uh… since she'll be the queen of the Earth, she should have a gentle spirit… and smart, she has to be smart… but also quiet, to make things easier on the king, 'ey?"

Xond nodded. Nothing had changed so far. "Anything else?"

As Xolarus considered, the attendant returned with his dragon. The sinuous, white-scaled creature wrapped gratefully around his arm as he accepted it, recognizing its master. His expression warmed as he stroked the trilling creature. "She should like animals."

Ah! The deciding factor at last! "Thank you, my Prince. You will hear from us shortly." As the spy left, though, another thought occurred to Xolarus. "Hey, Xond? I feel like a pervert for saying this, but a good-sized chest would be a plus!"

Xond smirked a little. "We've got you covered."

* * *

As soon as Godzilla's arrival had been announced, Kaori's first thought was to find her idol, though she wasn't sure if it was because she needed the Ms. Sakaki's support or if she was hoping to offer support herself. With nary a second thought, she bravely set out into the scene of chaos that was their shelter.

Over time, though, the students settled. What else could they do? There was nowhere to go anyway. Most of their number clustered around the radio, watching impatiently as Mr. Ogawa fiddled with it. A few even seemed enthusiastic to hear how G-Force was faring.

"It's only natural that they would recover so quickly," Mr. Honada said softly to himself, watching them with bleak affection. "They're young. They don't remember the horrors of the past… they don't understand what—"

"Lemonade?" a young teacher offered, holding a Dixie cup out to him. Honada was jerked out of his dark pondering hard enough that he almost got whiplash. "Good stuff. I think somebody spiked it."

"Uh… sure. Thank you."

Taking the cup in hand, he turned and looked over the throng of students. "It's for the best," he decided. "It is not their weight to carry."

Tomo definitely would have agreed with him. She sat at a table with Yomi on the far side of the shelter, as high of spirits as ever. "This is the best damn lemonade I've ever had! Hey, ya think somebody spiked it?"

Yomi looked at her tiredly. "How can you be so upbeat?"

"Well, what's wrong? We're safe down here, right?"

"I'm not worried about us, stupid! I mean, what about my family? Heck, what about _your _family? Why aren't _you_ worried?"

"Huh?" Tomo blinked. "How would worrying help?"

"Well, it wouldn't, but…"

"Seriously, Yomi, I don't wanna be stuck here with you if you're going to be all cranky and gloomy… well, more than you usually are."

"You selfish little…" Yomi sighed and covered her eyes. "Don't you have the slightest concern for anyone out there?"

"Well, of course," for an instant, Tomo's eyes were soft and not at all manic. "But c'mon, Yomi, lighten up! Let's make the best of this… I mean, look, even Osaka knows what's up!" She indicated Sakaki's couch, where the Osakan gal had sprawled over her third and fallen fast asleep, the mysterious egg cradled against her stomach in one hand. "See? She knows what worryin' will get her!"

"Yeah," Yomi glanced back at her. "But she's… she's Osaka."

"And guess what? I'm Tomo!" She slapped Yomi's shoulder heartily. "So suck it up, ya whiney bitch! She's doin' her thing and I'm doin' mine!"

"What have I done… to deserve this…" Yomi moaned, pushing her friend away.

It was then that Kaori's search finally came to an end. Did she fly into a jealous rage when she saw Chiyo curled up in the crook of her idol's arm? Of course not! All she saw was the strong and virtuous Sakaki protecting little Chiyo-chan. Who _wouldn't_ want to protect her?

"H-hi, Ms. Sakaki." Sakaki nodded pleasantly in return. Her gaze seemed a bit distant, but under the circumstances, that could be forgiven. Be natural! Be yourself! Stop _being so nervous! _"M-may I sit w-with you?"

The tall girl glanced down at Chiyo, then over at the sleeping Osaka. "Er…" she started apologetically. Oh, right. The couch was pretty full.

"It's okay," Kaori said quickly, then sat against the couch next to the raven-haired girl's feet, drawing her knees to her chin. "I'd just rather not be alone." Without really thinking about it, she rested her head on Sakaki's knee.

"Um…"

Osaka made a sound in her sleep and shifted; suddenly, she too was resting on Sakaki, who was beginning to feel a bit like furniture. Still, she didn't count herself too unfortunate until Tomo happened to notice this arrangement and thought, well, when in Rome…

"BANZAI!"

And then, being Tomo, decided to "do as the Romans do" from twenty paces and at thirty-five kilometers an hour.

* * *

Osaka stood in the center of a vast plain of waving, waist-high grass. Something huge rushed through the air over her head, but when she looked up it was already long gone. Puffy white clouds rolled across a forget-me-not blue sky, propelled by a cool breeze that she could feel running through her hair.

All in all, it was the third most vivid dream she had ever experienced. (Her visits with James Brown in his snow-shrouded Temple of Soul still trumped this one, but that might have been because of the Himalayan cold.)

"Ayumu Kasuga!" A pair of high-pitched voices called in unison.

"Waugh!" she cried, jumping back. "It's the new recruits!"

"You must return the egg!"

"And they've got a one-track mind," she scratched her head and gazed around, but the field was empty save her and an ominous black statue that stood in the near distance. "Uh… where are you?"

"Down here!" Osaka knelt and observed that two four-inch-tall women were standing at her feet. Well, how about that. "Oh, hey!" she said, holding her hand out in greeting, "Whassup?"

"You _must _return the egg!"

"Y… yeah… I got that much…" she looked between them. "Who are you?"

"We are the priestesses of Mothra!"

"Er, Mothra?" The whatever-it-was rushed by overhead again. She looked, but all she could see was that the dark statue had drawn nearer. It waved in a friendly manner when their eyes met; this did little to make her feel better. "Never heard of that one. Are you two a cult?"

"No!" they snapped, "Mothra is the mystical guardian of Earth!"

"Guardian of…? Oh, so you mean like Ultraman?"

There was a bit of a pause. "…sure," the priestess on the right finally said. "Look, we left that egg where we did because we thought that the Soul of Light would find it there."

"Yes?"

"And then… well, and then _you _picked it up," Lefty finished. "You have to return it so that the Soul of Light can find the egg and take it to Birth Island."

"I could…" Osaka started.

"Mothra draws strength from the Soul," the two explained, "If her egg doesn't grow with the SoL, she won't be strong enough to protect the world!"

"But what if I'm the Soul of Light?" The priestesses considered this possibility—then burst out laughing. "Hey, it's… it's not impossible, is it? I have soul." (3)

"You?" They chuckled, just slightly out of time with each other. "_You _have the strength to save the Earth?"

"And while I'm asking questions, can you tell me why that stupid statue is sneaking up on me?" Osaka asked, glancing over her shoulder. It was about four feet behind her. "It's starting to freak me out."

"What statue? We're four inches tall," Lefty reminded her.

"We can barely make out your knees," Righty added.

"Oh."

"If it will make you feel better, we can do a test to see if you're the Soul of Light," the priestesses offered, in synch once more "If you promise to return the egg after."

"Sure," Osaka said. "I'm not too good at tests, though. It's not a multiple choice, is-?"

It was just then that she was awakened by 50 kilograms of flying Tomo.

* * *

Footnotes:

1) Or, to put it in terms that would give poor Chiyo-chan a migraine, "A spinning silvery saucer-shaped star-ship slashed through space." Ten times fast.

2) Please… please tell me you do _not _recognize that name. Can you say "hopeless depths of geekdom"?

3) Foolish Shobijin! They should know better than to question a disciple of the very Godfather of Soul!


	3. Out of Sorts

And for all the furor the Big G's arrival caused, there was surprisingly little sign that he had been and gone. The beast had barely made landfall before G-Force drove him back into the sea through the creative use of fuel-air explosives and as yet undisclosed secret weapons.

Chiyo sat in the back of a company car, head resting against the window tiredly, the beads of a light drizzle rolling past her unfocused eyes. Her father sat awkwardly next to her, hands folded on his lap. "Sorry that we couldn't offer your friends a ride," he finally said, indicating the small car's interior ruefully. "We rushed right over. All I could think of was to make sure you were safe…"

"It's okay," Chiyo sighed, "I'm sure they'll be fine."

"Can't believe this happened, eh? First time in fifty years… but you know, this time hardly anyone was hurt. Well, except the monster." His voice held a certain note of pride that vanished into concern. "Sure you're doin' all right, kiddo?"

"Yes… sorry, it's just…" they bumped to a stop.

"Sorry, boss," the driver pointed ahead, "SDF."

Traffic on their street had been stopped to allow a column of tanks to cross in front of them. Chiyo sat wrapped in her own thoughts for a few seconds, but then sat up sharply with an angry, "Hey!"

Mr. Mihama blinked. "Uh? What's wrong?"

"A _hobby drawing!_" she said crossly. "Honestly!" Embarrassed, her father didn't reply as the last Mihama Heavy Industries Laser Tank growled by and traffic resumed.

* * *

"You probably didn't move the whole time," Sakaki murmured affectionately, resting her hand on the wall next to the gray cat. He yawned cavernously, showing off his devilish teeth, then padded away without acknowledging her. For an absurd moment, Sakaki felt hurt, but then shook her head and continued towards home.

Kaori walked nearby, seeming, like many of their fellow students, just a little bit out of sorts. Though an explosive cheer had risen at the news of Godzilla's retreat, and the whole school (particularly Tomo) had been full of excited chatter as they rose to street-level, once out in the open air a hush had settled over them.

Armies of parents had swooped in on the school, frantic to see that their children were alright, but once Chiyo had left, Sakaki had silently and confidently set out on foot. Feeling lost, Kaori followed her in spite of the fact that her home lay in almost the opposite direction. Truly, she almost seemed to be sleepwalking.

"Are you okay?" Sakaki asked. Her expression was as flat as ever, but worry colored her dark eyes. Unfortunately, this was lost on Kaori, unable to meet them as always.

"Uh?" the smaller girl jolted at her soft voice.

"You don't live this way."

Kaori flinched again. "I'm—I'm sorry!"

"You're sorry? But what…?"

"I'll stop bothering you now!" Kaori bowed and scurried away quickly.

"But…!" Sakaki reached after her, "What's wrong? Kaori!" When her admirer turned back in surprise, their eyes finally met.

"I didn't… I thought… I just…" Kaori fumbled. Stop it. Stop and _think_ about what you're trying to say. But what is it you're trying to say? Oh, hell. "My parents are out of town… the house is empty and I… I didn't want… to be…" she petered out. How pathetic must she sound?

"Would you…" Sakaki didn't know quite what to say herself. "Like to come over?"

"_Would _I?" Kaori shook herself visibly. "Thank you, but I… I couldn't."

"Please? I could use a friend, too."

Kaori smiled shyly. "Well, y-yes. Yes, thank you."

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want a ride, honey?" Yomi's mother asked kindly.

"Er, no," Tomo replied, casting an uncomfortable glance at her best friend. "I, uh, think I feel like a walk."

"Well, suit yourself. I guess I would to, being cooped up down there all day!" the older woman said cheerfully. "Not this one, though. She's always been a bit lazy, y'know?"

Tomo smiled and nodded, but didn't comment. Though it was normally a treat to commiserate with Mrs. Mizuhara about Yomi, especially when the bespectacled girl was present, now was _definitely_ not the time. "See you later. And Yomi--catch you," she struck a pose, "On the _flip si-ide!_"

Yomi waved shortly. She couldn't even spare an exasperated sigh? This was a bad case. With another cheerful "Bye!" from her mother, they pulled out and entered the flow of traffic. Once they were well and truly gone, Tomo shook her head. "Yomi, you moron."

Around her, the rapidly emptying school grounds were a scene of controlled chaos. It was normally the sort of setting she was comfortable in, but this time everything was all wrong. Everybody was strangely quiet, a little dazed, mincing around as if they were afraid Godzilla would hear them and come roaring back out of the depths to eat them.

She looked about in disgust, though whether it was at everyone around her, Yomi in particular or perhaps just herself was unclear. It didn't matter anyway. Shrugging the whole thing off, Tomo started for home, but just as she was about to leave the grounds, she happened to notice Osaka.

The girl stood alone behind the school, that weird egg-thingy of hers resting in one arm, staring at something on the ground with great interest. Curious, Tomo moved closer and saw that it was the track that held her interest for some reason. Never one to pass up a chance to hone her ninja technique, Tomo edged up behind her, and… "Yo, Osaka!" she yelled, less than a foot behind her victim.

_Fwack!_ Osaka's open hand shot up and rapped against her nose sharply. Tomo yelped loudly and staggered back; a moment later, Osaka turned, every bit as surprised as the would-be ninja by her reflex. "Oh… hey, Tomo. 'Sup?"

"What did you--owww!"

"Sorry."

"Never mind, forget it." Dang! She didn't know Osaka could hit that hard! "What're you doing here? Shouldn't you be headed home?"

"Probably… I was distracted."

"By what?"

Osaka looked back over the track, eyes distant. "I was tryin' to imagine it."

"Imagine what? You're staring at asphalt."

Instead of answering, Osaka walked to the edge of the 100m track and lay down, feet resting on the line. She stared determinedly along the track for a few seconds, then closed her eyes. Shrugging, Tomo lay down next to her. "Okay, so what are we doing?"

"It's real…" Osaka squinted over the track again.

Tomo followed her gaze, but all she saw over there was a cone. Her patience quickly waned. "Okay, do you want me to start kicking you?"

The spacey girl turned her head and smirked, looking for a minute as if she were considering leaving Tomo in the dark, but then finally relented. "I read how big Godzilla is… that cone, see it?"

"Yeah."

"Imagine we're looking up at his head."

Tomo looked at the cone herself and tried to imagine standing at the feet of a beast that reached such heights. "Holy crap!" A wave of dizziness rolled through her. How could something like that _be_?

"I think he looks taller on TV," Osaka said, giggling at the stupefied look Tomo gave her. She rose slowly, took one last look at the cone, and with a faint "hunh," started to walk away. "Why didn't you catch a ride with Yomi?"

"Oh," Tomo said dismissively, hopping to her feet, "She's mad at me."

Osaka looked at her oddly.

"I don't mean yelling at me and hitting me and calling me names, that wouldn't be a problem. Yomi's _mad _at me." A few seconds passed without Osaka's reply, and though her preference would have been to kill the subject, Tomo found herself barreling ahead. "I guess she didn't think I was worried enough. Frickin' idiot; just because things are goin' to hell doesn't mean your heart has to seize up and get all… all constipated, know what I mean? I cared just as much as she did, I do, but that's no reason to cry or freak out or whine like a punk, right? Right?"

Osaka shrugged. "Diff'rent folks, diff'rent strokes."

"It's just stupid, is what it is! You saw, I did my best to keep the mood light, but everyone insisted on just shriveling up! Even Chiyo, and she's supposed to be smart! I hate that! It's like giving up… it's like, if we were dying and stuff, they'd just… lie down and… and die!"

"Don't you think some things are worth being serious about?"

"Of course! But what the hell would being serious have gotten us there? Ulcers, that's what! If we're gonna get nuked in five minutes, might as well make them worth it, right?"

"Well…" Osaka put out her hands. Tomo happened to notice that her fossilized mushroom had somehow grown to about the size of a chicken egg. Freaky. "Uh, I had an ulcer once."

"Really?"

"It was in my eye." (1)

"_What?_" Tomo blinked. "Did it get lost or something?"

"Dunno." The girls had been walking for a few minutes now, not thinking about their direction. Either by accident or subconscious design, they were drawing near the Kasuga residence. Wouldn't Osaka's folks be glad to see her…?

Feeling an uncharacteristic stab of guilt, Tomo grabbed her cell phone. "I'm gonna tell my mom I'm all right."

"Good call." It was a few seconds before Osaka realized she had made a pun and started laughing; Tomo's off-handed slap only tousled her hair a little.

After checking in with her parents (who seemed a bit disinterested, if you asked Tomo), Osaka changed into street clothes and they set out together for the Takino residence. Though the other girls didn't really know about this facet of their friendship, Tomo's house was a refuge for Osaka when things got… dicey… around home.

And while things looked absolutely fine on the homefront, Tomo didn't question her friend's need for refuge, or what it could be from. She did notice that the usual fog behind Osaka's eyes seemed a little thicker than normal, her stance tense and lacking her usual drifting, balloon-y grace.

Tomo knew what this called for: Takino special brand tension relief! "Hey, Osaka… you wanna learn one of my ninja techniques?"

"Sure," Osaka said distractedly.

Now, the way her friend was asking, Tomo didn't really see the need for this first step, but it was part of the technique and ninja forms must be observed. "Look over there!" she cried, pointing.

"Huh?"

"ATTACK!" Tomo tackled Osaka onto a patch of grass, quickly rolling off of her friend and bracing for the counterattack—that never came. If there was one thing Tomo hated more than tension, it was awkward silences. "Uh… Osaka? Is something the matter?"

"For the first part," Osaka replied placidly, slowly sitting up beside her, "You could have broken the egg. It's important to me. For the second part, you could have broken my _head_. I need that, too. For the third part…" she paled visibly. "Remember that letter opener I was going to throw at your head?"

"_What?_" In point of fact, Tomo had completely forgotten their conversation that morning.

Her friend seemed to genuinely find this amusing, in a half-baked sort of way. "I had it in my pocket just then, but… heh! Funniest thing in the world… I think it's in my leg now." Tomo glanced over, and sure enough, a maroon blotch was growing on Osaka's hip pocket. She surged to her feet in a panic. "B-blood?"

Osaka giggled dazedly, turning a vacant gaze up to her friend. "Couldja kindly help me back before I start bleeding all over the place?"

"Blood…?"

"C'mon, don' make me hobble all the way b…" Osaka pleaded.

"WAUGHH! BLOOD!" Tomo ran away, waving her arms.

For a few seconds, all was silent. "…shoot."

* * *

1) I've been there. I kid you not. Weirdest… sick day… ever. 


	4. Off Balance

Osaka's eyes opened on the sea, just as the huge whatever-it-was passed over her head again. This… was a dream, wasn't it? She clearly remembered falling asleep on Yomi's couch while she and Tomo watched the news. But now she could feel the warmth of the sun on her brow, smell the sea-breeze and feel sand shifting beneath her bare feet.

"Hmm… maybe I'm going insane. That would be fun…" Looking down at herself, she saw that she wore a sky blue dress with a bright red sash. Oh, yes… the test. Of course she'd have to present herself well! Suddenly nervous, she tried to remember some of the tips Tomo had given her for the coming college interview, but then also recalled that they were all pretty useless.

"But I'm telling you, they've already bonded! If we make her give it up now, we could be sunk anyway! And who says that the Soul of Light would even find it then?"

"Look, it's not a matter of strength, or chance, or anything else! The fate of the world was entrusted to the SoL, and I'll be damned if we let this cotton-puff ruin everything!"

For some reason, she found the acronym very amusing. Osaka finally came upon the two priestesses, facing each other on a grassy hill above the beach where she'd started. "Doncha know it's rude to talk about people behind their backs?" she asked lightly.

"What are we gonna do now?" the one on the left asked softly.

"United front!" the one on the right snapped. They conferred silently for a few seconds, then: "You're a strange case, Ayumu," they chorused.

"I get that a lot," she replied modestly.

"You are not the Soul of Light, and should not have been entrusted with the egg of Mothra. We're sorry that this burden has fallen on you."

"Aww… so who was it?"

"Chihiro."

"Who?" Osaka asked blankly.

"It isn't important. For some reason, Mothra has already bonded with you; now we have to test your worthiness. First, the SoL should be able to join us in the Song that calls out to Mothra."

Osaka sat down and folded her hands. "I'm not much of a singer."

"It's not much of a song," the priestess on the right replied. The other hit her.

And so they sang. It was an exultant, sweeping melody that made Osaka's heart soar, the kind that one can't help but try to sing along with, even if one couldn't carry a tune to save their life. But while she was a fair bit better than _that_, when Osaka opened her mouth to try, something inside of her froze. It wasn't… the song wasn't _right_…

Instead of joining in, the girl found herself humming a different tune. It was a counterpoint to the twins, threading through Mothra's song and giving it a bitter, longing quality. After a few seconds of this, the priestesses faltered and looked at each other uneasily.

Osaka continued humming after they had stopped, swaying slightly from side to side. Finally, the Shobijin cleared their throats and her shimmering eyes drifted open. "Oh… how was that?"

"Nobody's ever done that."

"Huh?"

"You…" the priestesses looked at each other. "Didn't sing with us. Everybody always tries to join in the melody. We don't know what this means."

"But… but… you're the tiny little magical women! You're supposed to know what's up!"  
"We're sorry."  
Osaka smiled wanly. "That makes me feel _so_ much better."

"You know, we could…" Lefty said, turning to her sister.  
"No way! She couldn't handle that… er, could she?"  
"I think so."  
"I dunno, she seems pretty fragile."  
Nervous, the girl looked between them. "Wh-what am I too fragile for?"

"Saving the world, for one thing," Righty said dryly. "Okay, I guess it's all that we can do." They continued together, "We will show you that which opposes Mothra, the creature that your strength will have to stand against."

Without any ado, something huge blotted out the sun. Though she had never actually managed to see it, she knew that this was a different "something huge" than the one that had been making flybys the whole dream. This one… she was paralyzed with horror just by the knowledge of its existence!

What was it? Even Osaka's mind, removed as it was from the vastly overrated reality of her peers, refused to accept the horror that she saw descending towards her. A scream died in her throat and fell leaden in her chest, adrenaline surged through her frozen body, her heart clenched violently and—

* * *

"Osaka? Hey, there's food!" Tomo said, shaking her.

"Oh!" Osaka's eyes snapped open and she grabbed her friend's arm in a lightning motion, sitting bolt upright with a ragged gasp. "_Thank you!_"

"Uh…" Tomo looked at her arm awkwardly.

"Oh… hehe…" Osaka released the other's sleeve and put a hand to the back of her head, "Hey, Tomo." After a second or two to recover, she looked around in mild confusion.

"Yomi's house, remember?" Tomo said impatiently, "C'mon! Grub!"

Ah, yes. Yomi's house. They'd spent all of fifteen minutes in the amiable rough-and-tumble that was the Takino household before Tomo decided to call her best friend and make up. And by "make up" I mean that they insulted each other and argued until Yomi's wrath was finally spent and they were green-lighted to come over for dinner.

"D'ya ever wonder why they call it grub?" Osaka asked as her friend towed her through the small house. It was plain to see that her mouth was working without input from her brain. "It's not like we're eating caterpillars or anything…"

"Uh-huh."

"And take it from me, caterpillars don't taste very good, anyway."

"Uh-huh… wait, what?"

As usual when Yomi had multiple guests, dinner was set out buffet-style for people to serve themselves. Taking a plate in still-shaking hands, Osaka very carefully dished herself a little; this family had a fondness for ridiculously spicy food and she'd suffered enough injury that day.

"How's your leg, honey?" Mrs. Mizuhara asked, pouring her a glass of milk.

"Huh?" The letter-opener wound throbbed, reminding her. "Oh… fine, thanks."

"You look a little peaked. Be sure you eat enough, okay? I swear, you children are all so scrawny… say, do you girls want some apple slices?" Yomi and Osaka glanced at each other, but before either could give a polite negative, Tomo hopped up between them with a cry of, "For sure!"

Mrs. Mizuhara laughed. "Go on out with your food, I'll bring them to you."

"Thank you!" Tomo chirped, and made off with her meal.

"She's so polite, isn't she?" she commented, prompting a sigh and shake of the head from her daughter. As they moved at a much more sedate pace to join their friend. Yomi glanced at Osaka. "Are you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost."  
"How about a three-headed space demon?"  
Yomi blinked. "Sure."  
Osaka giggled. "You're pretty perceptive."

* * *

The Great Saucer's hold was a humongous pool of shadow. The darkness was almost a tangible thing, cool and slick, sliding around over Prince Xolarus's head as he entered. Equally as tangible was the sense that the space was _full_… though it was in near total darkness, the prince fancied he could see the titanic form resting within.

Xoltan followed at a respectful distance, looking up into the hold apprehensively. This place gave him the willies and what they kept there scared him stupid, but he always insisted on coming along for these visitations. He hardly knew why.

"Here to see your pet?" the Keeper asked casually.

"Yes," Xolarus nodded. "Has he been sleeping well?"

"Actually, no." The Keeper handed over a glowstick that he wisely refrained from using and led him deeper into the blackness. "Something came up a few minutes ago… he stirred."

"He… stirred."

"I have no idea what caused it, my lord."

"That… damn." Xolarus looked up uneasily. "Do you have any notion of how unbelievably bad it would be if he woke up?"

The fellow looked at him helplessly.

"Oh, can I?" Xoltan asked eagerly. When the Prince nodded, he stalked forward and grabbed the Keeper by his lapels. "If that creature woke up, he would _tear_ the ship apart, _kill _us all, fly back to Planet X and _lay waste_ to the whole world. You yourself could possibly be _fried_ by a gravity beam, _smashed _by wreckage or sucked out into space where you'd suffer _explosive decompression!_ So you're telling me that, in spite of being the _sole _caretaker of a monster with the power to annihilate _all life_ in the solar system, you _don't know what's-?_"

"Whoa," Prince Xolarus laid a hand on his shoulder. "Tone it down. You're freaking the guy out."

"I… uh, I thought freaking the guy out was the object."

"Well, yes, but he isn't supposed to crap himself."

"Okay…" Xoltan looked back at the Keeper and slapped his shoulder amiably. "Sorry about that, man. But seriously, you should look into that."

"It's the Guardian," a new voice said.

Xoltan turned sharply, hand dropping to his needle-ray projector, but the Prince threw out a hand to stop him. "Who's this?" he asked their host.

"Oh, it's my sister," the Keeper said dismissively. "She has all these idiotic theories…"

"No, no, I want to hear this. C'mon into the light."

An Xian girl emerged from the shadows, small and plain, wearing a modest white dress and carrying one of the Keeper's implements. Xolarus remembered that she sometimes helped her brother care for their colossal charge. "My lord," she murmured, giving him a curtsy.

"What's your name?" the prince asked kindly.

"Xandra, sir."

"And what was this about a Guardian?"

"His dreams were disturbed…" Her wide, solemn eyes were a darker gold, almost brown, yet they glimmered even in the scant light. "He's caught his first sight of his adversary, Earth's Mystical Guardian. It… she, I think, was sizing him up. I… I don't know what we can do about it, but he hasn't stirred since."

"Mystical guardian, eh?" Xoltan snapped his fingers. "Do you guess it's that great lummox that slogged up on Japan's shore a few hours ago? He looked like he could give our boy a fight…"

"I doubt it…" Xolarus considered, "He was acting like a big dumb animal, wasn't he? Well…" he turned back to the girl. "So how did you find out about it?"

"I don't know… I've been having dreams…" Xandra looked disturbed. "They, they want me to do something…"

The officers looked at each other, but Xolarus laid a hand on her head. "Don't you worry. Your dreams can't harm you, little one." Feeling impulsive, the prince raised his glowstick on high. Strident light burst out and struck a wall of golden scales above them, illuminating the beautiful, grotesque, impossibly huge creature that slumbered in the darkness.

Xolarus chuckled deeply, kindliness evaporating as a cold smile twisted his elegant mouth. "_Nothing_ will harm my subjects. The Earthmen can have their laser guns. They can have their mystical guardians. They can even have Captain Kirk. But no matter what they have… the forces of Earth shall crumble before the invincible space monster--_King Ghidora!_"

The glowstick flickered out and they all stood around blinking for a few seconds. "Word," Xoltan finally said.

* * *

Like most of Tokyo, our heroines were mostly glued to the news. Though the strange case of Godzilla's visit and subsequent retreat wasn't developing very quickly, it was rather like a slow-motion trainwreck that one couldn't look away from.

Tomo and Yomi sat side by side on the living room's floor, using half of their brains to absorb the news and the other half to bicker about some trifling matter or another. Osaka was curled up on the couch behind them like a cat, staring into space and absently stroking the fossilized mushroom's smooth surface.

"Here you go, girls," Mrs. Mizuhara said, slipping in and setting out a platter of sliced apples. "Eat up… especially you!" She poked Osaka's side gently. "You're nothing but skin and bones!"

"Thanks," Yomi said absently, reaching back without looking and taking one of the rounded-off end pieces.

"You zeroed right in on it," her mother said affectionately. "Did you know that when Yomi was little she used to cry when she didn't get the end piece?"

"Mother…!"

"Sounds just like her," Tomo said with a grin.

The newscaster was droning on through this whole conversation, but Osaka perked up when he said, "…speculate that Godzilla has gone to Birth Island to lick his wounds. An expedition is being assembled…"

"I have to go there!" the space cadet suddenly piped.  
"Huh?"  
"What?"  
"Birth Island!" Osaka shifted in her seat and pointed to the screen, suddenly alert. "It all makes sense now! I have to take the egg there!"

"What all makes…?" Yomi glanced to the TV, where a map of Japan was highlighting a small island several miles southeast of Hokkaido. "I don't think I've ever heard of Birth Island."

"I'm not surprised. It's completely fictitious!"  
There was a general pause.  
"Sorry," Osaka said, abashed. "It just popped out."

"So that's an egg?" Yomi asked. "Wait a second… why do you have to…?"

"Shh!" Tomo hit her arm. "Listen!"

"Thanks, Ichiro," a field reporter said, "Once a beautiful retreat for feudal lords, Birth Island was reduced to an irradiated wasteland by Hydrogen Bomb testing. As recently as 1992, radiation levels…"

Both looked back at Osaka, who'd stood upon the couch, looking serene and determined. "That's my quest. I have to take the egg of Mothra to Birth Island!" she laughed softly. "It's all so simple! Why was I worried? I mean… how could it possibly go wrong?"

Just then, the TV let off a blast of static as its signal was hijacked. After a little noodling, wavering and a faint "is this thing on?", the picture settled. As you might expect, it now showed the terrifying alien visage of Prince Xolarus! "People of Earth…" he greeted.

* * *

(A/N: It looks kind of weird to use "Xian" for the Planet X people, doesn't it? It makes one think of the abbreviation for "Christian." I imagine this would lead to some awkward headlines, like: "JAPAN BRACES FOR XIAN INVASION" and "BISHOP DENOUNCES XIANS AS EVIL." Blehh…) 


	5. What Folly!

Agent Xond entered the dark hold with much less trepidation than his superiors, snatching a glowstick from its bracket and igniting it without pause. Ignoring the Ghidora's fantastic bulk, his sharp eyes fell immediately on the Keeper, who yelped and turned away from the offending light.

"Where's your sister?" Xond snapped.

"I don't know," the other replied defensively, shading his eyes, "I'm not her keeper!"

"I abhor puns. Now tell me where to find Xandra."

"Well could you turn that off? You're gonna disturb the big guy!"

"Hmph." They were again plunged into darkness. "I'm a busy man, Keeper. If you don't produce your sister very shortly, I could do something unpleasant."

"What," the Keeper was derisive. "Like leave your card and a message?"

"Who's here?" Xandra asked. Now, Xond had had nerves of steel even before he'd trained as a deep-cover agent on Earth, but her soft question emerged from the inky blackness practically right at his elbow. A combination of surprise that his sharp senses had been so easily overcome and the looming presence of Ghidora made him overreact just a tad.

"AUGHH!" the spy whirled, snapping the glowstick on with one hand and drawing his needle ray with the other. Xandra flinched, but otherwise didn't react when she found a weapon and a blazing light thrust in her face, gleaming eerily off of her coppery eyes.

"Again with the light!" the Keeper whined, shielding his face again.

When he saw that it was the girl, he turned the glowstick off and pocketed his gun again. "We need to talk."

"What…" she asked shakily, "Y-you're not going to apologize?"

"When our Prince visited the hold earlier, you mentioned something about an Earth Guardian to him?"

"Um, yes, but what…?"

"Because I already have forty men down there, and I would sure as hell like to know if there's anything endangering them!"

"Well, it's not… you see, it isn't…" Xandra looked at the ground. "I don't think it really… is… anything."

"Xolarus is going to make his announcement in two hours; it wouldn't be wise to make our move without knowing everything the Earthmen have to use against us, would it?"

"Well, no, but… did the Prince ask you to…?"

"Nope, it's called taking initiative. I'm a bit superstitious, you see, and I think you know more about this Guardian of yours than you've told our liege. Now hurry up and spill it, I still have to go down and bag him a bride!"

"Hold on a second!" Xandra had regained her balance. "I don't have to tell you anything if the Prince didn't order you here… and besides, it was just a dream! I probably couldn't remember everything if you put a gun to my head."

"Huh." Xond snappedthe needle-ray projector back to his hand and pressed its sharp snout into the bottom of her chin. She started to pull back, but a wiry hand gripping her shoulder put a stop to that. "Well, we'll see. Tell me everything."

* * *

At first, Kaori had been nervous to the pitch of terror about actually entering _the _abode of Ms. Sakaki, that shadowy realm of mystery and wonder. What would the home of a girl that was so cool and tough actually _be_ like? She'd walked alongside her towering friend in a daze, not even attempting to make conversation. (Which, with Sakaki, worked out well enough.)

The first shock came when she was shown to Sakaki's room. The furnishings were soft and frilly, the lighting muted, the windows open to let a cool autumn breeze billow light curtains. Oh, but the feminine quality of her room was less of a surprise than the _feline_ quality. Cats everywhere! Posters, models, plushies and even a few drawings that, while lacking in technical skill, showed that her heart had gone into them.

"W…whoa…" had been Kaori's first response. Then, to allay Sakaki's sudden embarrassment, "This… is great!"

"There isn't much to do here," Sakaki said apologetically, "Um, drink?"

"Huh? Oh! N-no, thanks."

They'd settled down to read, Sakaki lying on her stomach on the bed, Kaori sitting alongside against the side-table, paging through a magazine. As time passed, she realized with a sharp feeling of relief, very nearly disappointment, that there would be no test. She had never really approached Ms. Sakaki because she didn't consider herself worthy; what could small, timid, awkward Kaori do that could compare with her might?

But then… why should Sakaki demand that her friends be as incredible as she? Why, she'd be all alone! On that realization's heels came the slightly depressing feeling that she'd wasted all those years of High School… a simple "hey, wanna hang out?" might have changed her destiny forever! Ah, well. She was with Ms. Sakaki now, and that was enough.

For Sakaki's part, she was just relieved that her guest was content. Heck, content? Perhaps "rapturously happy" would have been a better description. Her friend must have been terribly lonely, especially after such a frightening event…

Over time, Kaori was filled with a strange feeling of peace and security, certain that nowhere on Earth was as safe as here with Sakaki. It was nearly two hours later when she finally spoke again. "Say, Ms. Sakaki?"

"Hm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Have you ever been in lo-?" And then Kaori was interrupted by a doorbell. Of all the--! She bottled up her annoyance and followed her host to the door. Sakaki's parents were evidently also out; it was no wonder she'd been eager to have Kaori over.

"Hello, is Ms. Nanashi Sakaki in?" The visitor on their doorstep was a small, clean-cut man in a business suit and sunglasses. As soon as she saw him, Kaori felt ill at ease; was it his pasty complexion? Prematurely silver hair? The fact that he carried himself like a man who's packing? Perhaps it was just that she couldn't see his eyes.

"Yes," Sakaki replied shortly, still standing in the door.

"…well?" he asked awkwardly. Though it was hard to tell through the sunglasses, Kaori was sure his gaze shifted to her chest for an instant. "Oh! It's you!" He flashed an official-looking badge at her. "Special Forces. I have a few questions for you, Ms. Sakaki."

"Yes?" she prodded quietly, without letting him in. Clearly, Sakaki was getting the same bad vibes from this strange fellow.

"Have you, recently, had any close encounters of the third kind?"

Sakaki stared at him for a few seconds. "Er… no."

A small silver device that looked like a water pistol appeared in his gloved hand. "Wrong!" he cried triumphantly, "This is an alien abduction! Put your hands in the air and nobody gets probed!"

"Are you serious?" Kaori asked sharply.

The stranger pointed his weapon at her feet and, with a ridiculous _dew-dew-dew-dew-dew! _sound, a blue beam leapt out and made a patch of carpet burst into a shower of sparks. Kaori screamed and leapt back to stare in shock at the tiny guttering fire on Sakaki's floor. "Deadly serious."

Now, there was still had a glimmer of hope. After all, the guy was a good three inches shorter than Sakaki, was certainly not a body-builder and stood within in easy reach. If Kaori's idol decided to fight back and save the day, it was just possible…

Sakaki raised her hands.

* * *

"_Peo_ple _of_ Earth… I am your new ruler. My name is Xolarus and I am the crown prince of Planet X, a dark world hidden from your primitive detection by the mass of Jupiter! We are superior aliens, here to build a peaceful, scientific civilization on Earth. Unless this world's powers unconditionally surrender, in four hours we shall unleash the invincible space monster King Ghidora to obliterate the city you call To_kyo_!"

"Aw, man," Tomo groaned, "It's _always_ Tokyo!" Yomi swatted her.

"Oh, but enough about such depressing matters. As part of the conquest of your world, I shall choose my bride from among your women! So, ladies, by your primitive calendar, I am a Virgo, and…"

There was a blast of static as the signal was re-hijacked. "That was a hoax," a government representative said flatly. "Ignore him and go back to your lives." The screen fuzzed over one last time and then thenews was restored. "…with two heads are a common sight near Birth Island, which has been dubbed 'Hell on Earth' by environmentalists…"

"Well. That was strange…" Yomi commented.

"Yomi, what's a Virgo?" In spite of the fact that Tomo had just asked a question, both paused so that Osaka could make a bubble-headed comment… but she didn't take the opportunity. They glanced back to the couch and saw that their friend was already by the door with her satchel packed, struggling with her shoelaces.

"Where are you going?" Yomi asked.  
"Birth Island," Osaka replied, looking at her oddly. "Didn't I just tell ya?"  
"You're not seriously… didn't you hear what the news guy said?"

"No, what?" Without waiting for an answer, Osaka stood and started to limp out the front door. "Sorry to eat and run, but I hafta go save the world."

"Save the…? Would you listen to yourself!" Incensed, Yomi followed her outside in stocking feet. "And don't you need the egg?"

"Oh… right. Heh!" Osaka turned on her heel and started painfully back into the house. "Thanks! If you hadn'ta stopped me, I'da made it ta Fukushima before I even noticed…"

"Osaka…!" Yomi started to follow her back in, but paused at the door. "How are you going to get there, huh?"

"I figure it'll work itself out," Osaka replied easily, hobbling past her again with the egg. Yomi didn't notice, concerned as she was with other matters, that it had grown to nearly the size of a softball.

"Can't argue with that logic," Tomo said.

"Shut up, you!" Yomi took Osaka's shoulder, drawing her up short. "Hey! Listen to me, Ayumu. What do you think you're doing? You couldn't make it four blocks, let alone two hundred miles! And what do you mean, save the world?"

"Didn't you see? The alien-"

"_Alien? _Oh, come on, be rational for a moment. A guy paints his face blue and goes on television saying he's going to take over the world. Are you going to take him seriously?"

"Why would an alien paint his face blue?" Osaka asked.  
"Yeah, she has a point," Tomo added.

"Stay out of this! Osaka… assuming you don't get lost, even if you make it to Birth Island, you'll die. It's radioactive!"

"It doesn't matter…" Osaka's serenity was fraying. "Look, I've got the Guardian of Earth here, and it's my job--Tomo, what are you doing?"

Tomo had put the back of her hand to Osaka's forehead, intending to make a crack about her health, but then recoiled in genuine surprise. "Holy shit! Osaka, you're _hot!_"

"Tomo, you know I don't swing that way!" Osaka admonished.  
"Wha…? Hey! Neither do I, I meant…!" Tomo defended furiously.  
Osaka gave a look that might have been sly if it were a little more focused and aimed at anyone in particular. "Suuure…" She straightened suddenly. "Yomi, you too?"

Yomi withdrew her hand. "Tomo's right, you're burning up! Are you sure you're feeling all right?"  
"Well, come to think of it, I have been feeling a little ooky lately…"  
"You should lie down," Yomi said firmly.

"But I have to get the egg…" Osaka protested, trailing off when the taller girl took her by her shoulders. "To… Birth…"  
"Please," Yomi said. "You're sick, your leg's hurt and Birth Island isn't going anywhere. I'll tell my mom you're not feeling well, and…"

Face to face with Yomi's certainty, doubt billowed through Osaka's eyes like a cloud of dye in water. She turned to Tomo and spoke in a very small voice. "You don't think I'm acting crazy, do you?"  
When, instead of laughing uproariously and saying something like, "You were always crazy!", Tomo just looked uncomfortably to the side, it was almost more than Osaka could bear. "But-! I'm not-!" Uncertainty filled her voice. "I'm not insane!"

"We don't think you are," Yomi soothed, smoothing her hair back. Suddenly, the prospect of presenting her friend to her mother in this state was less appealing; for all her gentle motherliness, Mrs. Mizuhara had a dim view of people who didn't have both feet on the ground. Odds were, she'd just think Osaka was trying to get attention. "Listen, do you want to go for a walk at the park?"

Osaka stood perfectly still for a few seconds, then looked at the ground. "S-sure."

"We'll just get our shoes and join you out here, okay?" Yomi said, then grabbed Tomo's arm and dragged her into the house. Before the wildcat idiot could protest, she leaned in and hissed, "Get Chiyo on your cell phone and tell her to meet us at the park!"  
"What do we need her for?"  
"Chiyo's the one person who can talk sense into Osaka when she gets these weird ideas. And for God's sake, act normal!"  
"Normal? Godzilla attacked, aliens are invading and Osaka thinks she has the Guardian of Earth in an egg! What the hell is normal?"  
"First off, aliens are _not_ invading, and secondly… figure it out!"

"'Figure it out!'" Tomo mimicked as she dialed one-handed. "Sheesh, what a moron..."


	6. A Dumb Story

Osaka would be the first to admit that she wasn't always in touch with reality. But no matter how fanciful she became, she was _never_ delusional… er, right? Up until about ten minutes ago, she had been certain that Mothra, the Shobijin, the space demon and all of it were as real as that damn letter opener. But now…

When she tried to explain herself to Yomi, she realized how stupid her story actually _was_. Seriously, though, Ayumu Kasuga holding the Guardian of Earth? _Her?_ She could hardly take care of herself! And why Birth Island? How would she even get there? Yeah, okay… she'd drag her wounded, directionally-challenged ass all the way to Sendai and catch a ferry. No ferry? Fine, she could limp across the damn ocean, too!

"So stupid," Osaka whispered, biting back tears.

Yomi glanced at her uncomfortably. They'd reached the park, and she still had no more insight into what ailed her friend than when they'd started. Unfortunately, Osaka was so used to the Bespectacled One's severe nature that she wasn't very forthcoming… the poor girl would feel like an idiot talking to her about it no matter how gentle she tried to be!

This was a job for Chiyo-chan.

Tomo sprinted ahead and scattered some pigeons, ignored by both, though Osaka might have smirked a little at the wildcat's whooping glee. It was a good thing Tomo didn't have a stick or any other blunt implement because the next thing her eyes, still wild from bird-hunting, fell on was the approaching Chiyo-chan.

"Look out!" Tomo yelled, though the warning coming an instant too late for the younger girl to avoid her. With a startled squeal, Chiyo tumbled across the park's lush grass, stopping just short of a concrete walk. "Sorry about that," her attacker called cheerfully, "You're okay, though!" And before she could respond, Chiyo was jerked to her feet and given a healthy push towards the others.

"Huh," Yomi muttered, "Maybe Tomo's acting a little _too_ normal…"

"Oh… hey, Chiyo-chan," Osaka greeted in mellow surprise. "How's it goin'?"

"I'm fine," Chiyo replied, casting an annoyed glance back at Tomo, "But are you all right, Ms. Osaka? I heard you were having a really bad day."

"Well, guess I am a little sick, but 'part from that…" Osaka shrugged, looking lost.

Chiyo gave her a hug, thereby unleashing her ultimate secret weapon. For when one is hugged by Chiyo-chan, it is physically impossible not to hug her back, and extremely difficult not to feel at least a little bit better about the world and your place in it. "Why don't we sit for a while? Do you want to tell me about it?"

"I… I guess so." Osaka sat down on a bench next to the prodigy, letting out a great sigh and sagging heavily. The fever was starting to show as a faint flush in her cheeks, mirroring the pinkish tinge spreading through her egg. Bizarrely, Chiyo didn't even seem to notice the thing, in spite of the fact that it was fast approaching football size.

Yomi surreptitiously pulled her best friend away. They'd only be able to screw things up, now.

"It started… with the two little tiny magical women."

* * *

"Two tiny magical women?" the Keeper snorted. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!"

"Do you want me to tell you or not?" Xandra replied impatiently.

"Sorry, go ahead. But keep working. Those scales aren't going to clean themselves!"

"Yes, brother." She didn't even bother to ask how he could tell that she'd stopped in the inky darkness. He seemed to have supernatural senses when it came to their colossal pet. "They told me that they represented the guardian of Earth, something called Mothra… they told me that what we're doing is wrong, and that Mothra would fight us."

"Mothra, eh? Sounds like a big insect or something."

Xandra smiled a little. "I asked them what they would do if we flew in with a great big galactic bug-zapper, but they just got kinda huffy. They said I had to help them, because Ghidora here is a ravenous space-demon that we can't hope to control and when he awakens he'll try to extinguish all life in the solar system and…"

"And all of this was a dream you had?" her brother asked sharply.

"Sorry," Xandra paused in her work. "I mean, I trust you and Xolarus, brother, I do! I don't know why I'd have a dream like that. So, the little women said all of that, then they told me that I had to save the world and nobody else could."

"You? Huh! And Xond put a gun to your head just for that! Jerk got what he paid for, eh?"

"It's not funny, brother! That bloody traumatized me!"

"Right, sorry. I'm sorry. And get back to work!"

Xandra sighed. "Yes, brother."

"You know, Xan, I'm relieved. It turns out that this vaunted guardian…"

* * *

"…couldn't possibly be real. I… I don't know what… what…" Osaka trailed off and looked at the ground miserably. "I was so _sure_. God…"

Chiyo patted her arm. "It's okay, Ms. Osaka. We've all-"

"But you don't _understand!_ It was… it was worse than when I had the dream I murdered you with a katana! I've been running around thinking that, that… oh, God, I'm such a…" She put a hand over her eyes. "_sniff! _Even if any o' this was true, there's no way I could pull it off. Who'd trust th' fate of the world to _sniff!_ a st- a stupid little weakling like me?"

"Ms. Osaka, don't talk like that!" Chiyo pleaded, still blinking from what her friend had said earlier. Murdered with a _katana?_ "Please! It'll be all right!"

Osaka smiled bitterly. "Y' sound like you're tryin' to convince yourself."

"Well…" the prodigy didn't know what to say. For all her brilliance, emotional matters still left her in a bind. "I mean, just because… uh…"

"So much for your specialist," Tomo whispered, sounding almost happy about it. Yomi looked at her spitefully, but didn't respond. "You know, my little sister gets like that all the time. I know _just_ what to do."

"Wait a second!" Yomi protested as the Takinator started towards them. Oh, no, what solution would _Tomo _bring to bear? And more importantly, would Osaka's health insurance cover whatever injuries the wildcat idiot's "help" caused? Yomi cringed, waiting for pandemonium to break loose…

"I know what'll cheer you up," Tomo said gently, as if to a child. She sat down next to Osaka and put an arm over her shoulder, resting her forehead against the other girl's so that they were eye to eye. "I have _GTA Tokyo_ at home and I was waiting to let you give it a try, whaddaya say? We can steal a Triad's car, run some people over, shoot up a fast food joint, start a gang war or two, eh? Sound like fun?"

There was no response.

"I even found the samurai sword. I had a chance to get a chainsaw instead, but I knew how much you love playing with swords…"

"Potato chips," Osaka suddenly said.

Everybody else blinked, but Tomo didn't miss a beat. "I forgot to brush my teeth after lunch, sorry. Now c'mon, there's no reason to mope around here, right?"

Almost against her will, Osaka was drawn to her feet. "Sorry for worrying you guys…" she apologized softly, "I'm just a li'l… overwrought."

"Don't worry about it," Chiyo said kindly, "We under… oh!" She laid her hand against Osaka's forehead. "Goodness, you're on fire!"

"You're not a lesbian, too, are you?" Osaka asked in long-suffering tones.

"Ms. Osaka, you should see a doctor!"

"Ah… it's just a little temperature. Y'know what they say, 'starve a fever, drown a cold.' Or is that, 'drown a fever, starve a cold'?"

"Wasn't there a headache in there?" Tomo asked.

"Yeah, I think you're right. 'Starve a fever, eat a headache'?"

"Well," Yomi sighed, "_They're_ back to normal."

So the friends set out as Tomo and Osaka wrangled. When they made it to 'eat a fever, shoot the hiccups with a twelve-guage', Yomi decided to step in. Just as she opened her mouth, though, Chiyo tugged on her sleeve. "Ms. Yomi?"

"Yeah?"

"Something just occurred to me. When she showed us the egg this morning, it was a lot smaller. How could it have grown unless…?"

"Osaka!" a high-pitched voice called sharply. They turned as one to see Kaori rushing towards them, looking more than just a li'l overwrought. She pushed rudely past Yomi and grabbed Osaka by her shoulders, panting for breath. "Thank God I found you!"

"Uh… what can I do for ya?"

"You're the only person who'd believe me! Listen:" She swallowed and drew a deep breath. "_The aliens took Ms. Sakaki!_"

The girls all stood in stunned silence for nearly a minute. So great was their shock that, of all people, Osaka was the first to recover. "Ha!" she cried. "I'm not insane after all!" When she started laughing, Kaori socked her in the eye.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the astral plane, the Shobijin conferred.

"So, that's it? We're sure now?"

"Yep."

"The machinery of fate broke down? This Ayumu Kasuga clearly, definitely, unequivocally is _not _the Soul of Light?"

"Yep."

…

"We're screwed, aren't we?"

"Yep."


	7. Back on Track

"I do not see what you are so upset about," Sakaki's abductor said in stilted Japanese. "I have already told you that you will not be harmed."

The towering girl didn't respond. She sat in the back of Xond's personal rocket ship, elbows resting on her knees, staring at the floor. The spy looked her over critically; she was certainly very pretty, but this continued silence bothered him. Had he messed up and captured the Prince an imbecile?

"If you wish, you could consider this your chance to save the world," Xond smiled thinly. "But I am certain one of my superiors will explain to you in more detail."

Sakaki looked up at him then returned her gaze to the floor. Folded up like that, pressed to the wall by the rocket's flight, she sure looked a lot smaller. Maybe she wouldn't be tall enough after all… short as he was, Xond had a hard time making height judgments sometimes.

"I was joking about the probes, by the way. Our medical scans are carried out by spectrograph wave. We discerned your biology as soon as you entered my vessel."

Nothing. She was _supposed_ to be quiet, but…

"Say something!" Xond snapped. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, but still didn't respond. "Damn it all, woman! Open your mouth!" he bawled, drawing his needle ray.

"Please don't shoot me!" she implored in a tiny voice.

"That's more like it," Xond whirled the weapon on his finger and holstered it. "I apologize. I was never very good with prisoners."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Well… I should let somebody with better interpersonal skills tell you. But accept my word!" He held out his fist, index and pinkie extended. "No probes, no implants, no mind control and no cattle mutilation. That is on a Space Scout's honor!"

Sakaki took a few seconds to process this. "Er… space scout?"

"I was discharged for beating up another Scout, but you can still take my word."

"Th… thank you." Sakaki was too tactful to verbally add the, 'I guess' that hovered in her voice anyway. Xond huffed and went back to the cockpit.

* * *

"Aliens?" Yomi sputtered, "Are you- are you _sure?_"

"Yeah, yeah I'm pretty sure!" Kaori replied wildly, "He had a flippin' _ray_ _gun_!"

"Are you okay, Ms. Osaka?" Chiyo knelt next to her friend, who sat heavily on the ground, rubbing her eye distractedly.

"Oh, my God, it's all real!" Osaka said with a dizzy smile. "I have the Guardian of the Earth, here!" She blinked and suddenly paled. "Oh, my God, it's all real!" she repeated, terrified. "I… have the Guardian of…" and then burst into tears.

Kaori ignored her. "What are we gonna do? They've got Sakaki!"

"Everyone, calm down! We have to stop and think about this," Yomi commanded, holding out her hands. "Panicking won't help anything."

"Let's talk it over at my place," Tomo offered, helping Osaka up.

"Sure… wait, why _your_ place?"

* * *

_Jun wove through traffic on his trusty motorbike, swiftly leaving the police behind on the congested road. The mission had gone well, but he'd picked up some unwanted attention in the last juncture and had to find a Pay-N-Spray fast! He cast a swift glance over his shoulder at the mired police cars, but when his view returned to the front, there was a car in his path and he was suddenly sailing through the air._

_After flying about twenty feet and slamming head-first into a concrete wall, he picked himself up off the ground, unfazed. The police had yet to catch up, but there was another problem… a trio of Triads closed in on him, wielding handguns and knives. "You picked the wrong street," their leader sneered._

_Jun was stone-faced as ever as a M6 appeared out of thin air in his hands and he took aim…_

"Tomo, would you get over here?" Yomi asked severely.

Tomo paused and handed the controller over to Osaka, who'd been sprawled on the floor next to her, watching intently. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," she advised. Osaka nodded, an eerie look coming into her eye.

_…then at the last minute, Jun changed his mind. The M6 vanished and he drew his katana through the lead Triad. The second was decapitated and the third impaled before they could even raise their guns. Next, the Yakuza walked swiftly to a car and thrust his blade through its window over the driver's throat, who meekly relinquished his vehicle._

_"Thank you very much," the criminal said dryly before speeding away._

"Honestly, you learn that aliens abducted one of your best friends and you're here playing that stupid video game?"

"Well, I promised Osaka," Tomo said simply. "And besides, this is heavy shit, man. I mean, this is _HG Wells_ heavy shit. What have you seen in our relationship to this date that makes you think I'm capable of contributing in any way?"

Yomi simmered for a moment, seeing that once again her friend had managed to weasel out of doing anything important. "Good point," she said grudgingly. "Go back to your game."

Tomo wandered back and yelped, "Aw, man! Osaka, they were just pedestrians! You didn't have to… oh, hey, my Katana skill went up. Good job!"

"I worry about them," Chiyo commented softly.

"Think of it as catharsis," Yomi advised. "All right, let's get thinking. Kaori, do you have any idea where they took Sakaki?"

"No," Kaori had focused like a laser on Operation: Rescue Sakaki. Now that everyone was on board, she didn't have time to be overwrought. "Except that they probably went back into space. He made a crack about someone being really eager to meet her."

"I don't know what we can do, then…"

"Have ya called the cops?" Osaka asked, eyes locked on the game.

There was a general pause. "Uh… we, uh, didn't think to," Yomi admitted, embarrassed. "But what could they do?"

"Depends… the government mighta been coverin' the aliens up for years. In that case, plenty!" At this, Yomi sighed. She was used to dealing with crackpot conspiracy theories from Tomo, but now was _not_ the time.

"Dude!" Tomo yelled gleefully, "What did that guy ever do to _you_, Osaka?"

"He was there." Ah. That was simple enough.

"And what should we do about Ms. Osaka's egg?" Chiyo asked. "We should help her, too, right? To get to that island?"

"Yeah, but… I can't believe we're seriously talking about this." Yomi rested her forehead on her hands. "Alien invasion and a roadtrip to Birth Island, of all places. An unshielded person wouldn't last ten minutes there."

"Roadtrip… so we'll need a c-" Chiyo swallowed a little. "A car. Or bus tickets, or something. And please, I would like to take this chance to veto involving Ms. Yukari, _please_."

"A car would be best; we won't have to depend on other-"

"Wait a second!" Kaori protested, "What about Ms. Sakaki?"

"If you have any ideas, I'm all ears," Yomi returned, "But it doesn't look like we can do anything to help her. And if Osaka's egg is really the guardian…"

"But-! But she-!" Kaori sagged. "Oh, damn. You're right… I just hope she's all right."

Chiyo put a hand on her shoulder. "We all do. I'm sure she'll be fine… she's the toughest one of all of us." (She made a mental note not to let Kagura hear her say that.)

"Right," Yomi added, "If they took Ms. Sakaki without hurting her, they're probably not planning to. What's the worst thing that could happen to her?"

* * *

"A fate worse than death…" Xoltan mused.

"What are you talking about?" Xethnex snapped. The second-in-command ran pudgy fingers through his hair and straightened his ill-fitting uniform. "She's going to marry a Prince! Don't Earth girls dream about that sort of thing?"

"That's a bit of a stereotype, actually. Being grabbed by a maniac like Xond and forced to marry (well, assuming Xolarus forces her) said Prince is probably more of a nightmare. And _don't-_" Xoltan flinched away from his superior out of reflex, "Hit me just because I said something you'd rather not hear."

Xethnex harrumphed. "Wasn't even thinking about it. Ah! My liege!"

Prince Xolarus glanced over from arranging his gold cape in a reflective wall and started towards them. Makeup artists and hair people swarmed around him, only to be scattered like flies before Xethnex's flailing arms. "Good day," Xolarus said.

"Are you ready to meet the girl?" Xoltan asked excitedly, "Nervous?"

"A little," the Prince admitted, "I mean, what if she doesn't like me?"

"Oh, come on, of course she'll like you! You're like an intergalactic pimp or some-!" He stepped swiftly back from Xethnex to avoid a healthy backhand. "Right, forgot about that word's connotations. But seriously, you'll be fine, man. I mean, my liege."

"I hope so. Xond's rocket is docking as we speak."

They walked in formation towards the docking bay, spacemen scurrying out of their way and saluting, ignored. Finally they came to the great, silvery expanse of the docking bay, filled with row after row of sleek rockets. Xond's was just settling down before them, the door hissing open and a ramp sliding down to the deck before its engines even fully died.

Within, Xond bowed to Sakaki and gestured for her to leave first. She took two steps towards the door- and gasped as a tingling wall of force pushed her back with a strange buzzing/ringing sound. Sakaki looked sharply at him, unconsciously smoothing her hair down.

The spy chuckled. "Couldn't resist." He consulted a console next to the door that looked like a kaleidoscope, pressing two buttons that clicked loudly like a tape-recorder's, then moving a slider all the way to the side. "Okay, now you can go through."

Sakaki shook her head and stood away from the door. With a sigh, Xond stepped through and stepped back, then looked at her pointedly. Watching him carefully, she exited the ship and started down its ramp.

Xolarus stared as the vision descended towards him. "She's _perfect!_" he whispered to himself. Xians have love at first sight too, unfortunately. He had a delirious, wonderful moment to watch her, thoroughly charmed by the way she walked, her timid expression, her flowing raven hair and—let's be honest—her good-sized chest, before his subordinate's voice intruded.

"Maybe you should talk to her first, or at least-" a surreptitious elbow from the second-in-command cut off Xoltan's muttered caution.

"Welcome to my vessel, young Miss!" Xolarus greeted grandly. "I am Prince Xolarus, the heir apparent of Planet X, future ruler of Earth… and your future husband!"

Sakaki stopped dead in her tracks, suddenly pale. "My… my what?"

Every Xian in the bay except for the Prince, from his second-in-command down to the lowly rocket technicians messing with the fuel lines, mentally slapped their foreheads. _Bad_ start!

* * *

"So… I'm not the Soul of Light after all?" Osaka asked, vaguely disappointed. The massive form swished through the air above her; she didn't even look this time. A green dress pooled about her as she sat before the shobijin, hands demurely folded. Grass that reached to her shoulders waved in the baking summer wind but mercifully, a bank of fluffy clouds covered the sun.

"This happens from time to time," the priestesses explained. "Normally, we would have you find the true Soul of Light and turn the egg over to her, but Mothra has taken a liking to you. This puts us in a bind."

"I guess that means the SoL is SOL, huh?" Osaka giggled.

The tiny women looked at each other. "Uh, I guess you could put it that way…" Righty allowed, scratching her head. "It's kind of a difficult situation, though."

"There was one other time the wrong person carried Mothra to her hatching…" Lefty started, but stopped when her sister took her arm.

"Are you sure we should tell her?"

"I don't see what it'll hurt." After a considering pause, the priestesses started together. "We decided to bow to Mothra's will and let this woman carry the egg. When she sang with us, it was in discord-but we thought that Mothra would not be wrong. The egg hatched, and Mothra's avatar was corrupted; it was a creature called Battra."

"So what happened?" Osaka asked, interested.

"Atlantis happened."

She grinned. "You mean like with the Sub-Mariner and…"

"No, more like with the hellfire, brimstone and deathrays raining from the sky."

Osaka's eyes widened impressively. "…oh."

"I knew we shouldn't have told her!" Righty hissed.

As if on cue, the landscape about them darkened. A bank of heavy clouds had been rolling in while they weren't watching, apparently. The left shobijin glanced at her sister and spoke. "It gets worse…"

"Oh, no, we are _not _going to tell her…"

"We can't very well gloss it over, can we? She has a right to know!"

"What?" Osaka leaned forward so that she was almost between them. "What is it?"

Righty sighed. "This is a mistake…"

Nevertheless, she joined Lefty to say this: "The Soul of Light would have the internal strength to support Mothra's growth, but you might not. It's possible… probable… that you will die."

Osaka didn't seem too upset. "Oh… well… I… I can live with that."

"No, no you can't. That's the problem. We can't force you to carry Mothra knowing this."

"What happens if I don't?"

"Mothra isn't born and the space demon is free to do what it will."

The Soul of Something closed her eyes.


	8. Fellowship

(A/N: The Shaun of the Dead reference is an awkward stab on my part. Let me know how it worked out.)

_Jun didn't move a muscle as the vengeful crowd of Riot Police closed in on him. He didn't react as they started raining nightstick blows on his head. He didn't even see fit to move before an overenthusiastic Police van plowed into him, knocking him sprawling from the overpass.  
__The Yakuza regained his feet but then failed to make any other move, even as a phalanx of police cars screeched to a halt around him and officers disembarked, guns blazing. He was fairly riddled with bullets, but still he stood stoically, watching the Riot Police charge him once more…_

"Jeez! Falling asleep at the wheel…" Tomo plucked the controller from Osaka's limp fingers. "How irresponsible!" She moved to awaken her friend in the patented Takino fashion… but something brought her up short. Looking at the girl lying there, snoring gently, arms wrapped around the egg and pressing it to her blazing cheek, Tomo got the sudden feeling that Osaka would break if she touched her.

Normally the Takinator was immune to worry, but all the sameit flooded throughTomo as she stood indecisive, leaving poor Jun to his fate.

* * *

The room was small, dark, and cool, blinds drawn against the setting sun. It was full of clutter; clothes strewn on the floor, posters up and down the walls, video games and DVDs in half-organized stacks and a even a disheveled set of small weights. However, in the dim twilight, only two objects mattered: a ringing phone and a grumpy, extremely tired pile of blankets that absolutely did _not _want to be disturbed. 

_R-r-r-r-ring! R-r-r-r-r-ring!_

It was an epic battle of wills, but finally the pile of blankets couldn't take it anymore. A tanned arm, slender but strong, emerged from its cottony depths and snatched the phone up while its owner greeted tersely, "Yo."

There was a pause, broken by a faint, high-pitched voice on the other end.

"Chiyo-chan, you know I love you, but if this isn't really important, I'm going to _break your head_. …mm? Oh… … that bad, eh? … … You know I wouldn't really break your head, right? … ah… … okay, yeah. I'll be there in a bit. Just let me close my eyes for a few seconds."

She hung up.

"Well, that's interesting…" Kagura commented to herself, worming free of her cocoon, "I've never heard Chiyo-chan so… _yawwnn!_ Yeah…"

She closed her eyes for a few seconds. And before those few were up she was in dreamland, though fortunately she wasn't accosted by any menacing statues, psychic faeries, space demons or DDR-playing Covenant aliens.

* * *

"What do you make of all this, I wonder?" 

Xandra was also alone in darkness, but she wouldn't have minded a friend's voice at that moment. She rested, back against a golden scale the size of a card table, listening to the thrum of a mighty tri-valved heart larger than her whole body.

_Ba-tha-dup. Ba-tha-dup._

"I don't guess you think too much about your lot… you must at least dream, though, eh? You've got three brains after all… _something_ must be going on in there." She rested her chin on her knees. "I hope so, anyway. Or are you just a mindless force of destruction? Maybe you're dreaming about fire and carnage and mayhem? Couldn't blame you… I do it myself, sometimes…"

"You're talking to Ghidora?" the Keeper asked, cracking a much dimmer, gentler glowstick than they'd used before. Xandra didn't jump; she'd listened to him enter and blunder his way over. "You must be worse off than I thought."

"Ah, well…"

"I'm serious, Xan. You should come out more… I mean, my friends like you."

"Too much. I don't like the way they look at me, brother."

"You know if any of them tried anything, I'd take his wallet and dump him out an airlock…" the Keeper shrugged, for once failing to show impatience with her. "That's your choice, though. But actually, the Prince needed your help for something."

"The Prince?" Xandra unconsciously sat straighter.

"Yeah. His bride needs help adjusting, and he wanted someone nearer her age to, I dunno, be her friend. You're, what, fifteen, sixteen?"

"Nineteen, actually, but good guess." She accepted this in good humor; her small build led to many such mistakes, even from family. "Does it matter that I can't speak the Earthmen's language?"

"Hypno-training, if you want it…" the Keeper watched his sister's expression darken and added, "They say knowing a second language makes you a lot smarter."

"You didn't volunteer me to have my brains turned to porridge, did you?"

"Xan," _Now _he was impatient. "Whatever issues you have with the hypno-trainer are just in your head. It's been proven safe…"

"_Just_ in my head? Um, where else would I have a problem with _hypnosis?_ In my foot?"

"And anyway, I think you two would get along. She's even quieter than you, and she likes animals, too."

"Xolarus has good taste." Was that sarcasm? When her back was up, Xandra's tone was so snarky that it was hard to tell sometimes.

"Come on, sister, make this easy for us." He hesitated, mouth twisting, before resorting to something he'd never tried with her. "_Please_?"

Xandra drummed her fingers on Ghidora's side for a few seconds before rendering her decision. "Okay, fine. I'll do it. What'll I be learning, then, Xapanese?"

"Er…"

* * *

"Um, but isn't this a little rude of us?" Chiyo asked uncertainly as the five girls trooped outside. Heavy, wet clouds filled the sky, though a sullen red sun broke though on the horizon to peek over the buildings. "Ms. Kagura said she'd come…" 

"She said she'd close her eyes for a few seconds," Yomi corrected. "When someone like Kagura says that, it means they're blowing you off and sleeping anyway."

"She wouldn't…!"

"Oh, it's not conscious; she must be exhausted after that swim-meet and the trip. But we need her help anyway."

Osaka was still limping a little, watching in fascination as her breath misted in the already moist air. "I get the feelin'," she commented, "We're forgettin' somethin' important."

"So do I," Kaori muttered bitterly. She didn't like how Operation: Rescue Sakaki had become Operation: Road Trip to Certain Death. But it seemed she was the only one with objections, so she held her peace as they walked silently in a loose line, Yomi in the lead and Osaka bringing up the rear. Osaka started humming the "Lord of the Rings" theme, but nobody noticed.

Suddenly, Yomi came to a jerking stop. Tomo bumped into her intentionally, nearly knocking her over before being shoved back into Chiyo, who _was_ knocked over. Yomi apologized quickly before turning back towards the cause of their sudden halt. "Ohyama," she greeted awkwardly.

"Koyomi," Ohyama returned, no more smoothly. Tomo grinned evilly, remembering that Yomi and Ohyama had had a brief, unpublicized and unremarkable romance earlier that year. She immediately devoted herself to thinking of some horrible way to embarrass her best friend.

Behind Ohyama was a loose line of a few boys from Class 3-3; hyperactive Kiyoshi (similarly plotting to humiliate Ohyama), towering, amiable, Sanada, mysterious loner Osamu, and finally, with his back turned to watch the sun, the delicate, thoughtful Kazuki. The two lines (save Kazuki) looked each other over, proving that even in the teeth of an alien invasion, people can still find the time for social awkwardness.

"You… look well…" Ohyama offered.

"And… and you." Yomi couldn't help but notice the symmetry. "You guys aren't…?"

"Ah, Kazuki's crazy grandpa bought us tickets to fly to Okinawa. He wants us to take this statue to a shrine there… something about the Azumi family guardian."

"Huh. 'Cause Osaka here's been having dreams that she's carrying the guardian of Earth in an egg. We were taking her to Birth Island so it could hatch."

"Well… uh, good luck with that," Ohyama said.

"Yeah, you… you too," Yomi replied.

There was another pregnant pause, and then they set out past each other without another word. "We'll get 'em next time," Tomo said to Kiyoshi as they passed; he grinned and punched into an open hand. "Say, Chiyo," Sanada asked as he crossed her path, "Could you tell Sakaki I said hi?"

The prodigy blinked, but recovered her poise instantly. "Of course!"

Sanada nodded pleasantly, then flinched back as Kaori hissed at him. She switched immediately from this threatening pose to a friendly greeting for Osamu, who returned it gravely. Once they passed each other, the only ones left were Osaka and Kazuki, bearing the statue--a Shisa--in his slender arms. Seeing it, Osaka smiled slightly and opened her mouth…

"_Tamago_ _yaibimi?_" Kazuki asked. (He used the standard Japanese word for egg, not the Okinawan; Kazuki's grandfather was continually frustrated by his thick-skulled inability to learn Uchinaguchi.)

"Uh… y-yeah."

"Almost looks like a… a fossilized mushroom."

"You think so too?" Osaka stopped and turned back. "Y'know, that's a really fun statue… is he angry about something?"

"Oh, they _all_ look angry," Kazuki said dismissively. "I think this one is constipated."

"_Osaka!_" Yomi called sharply. "_Kazuki!_" Ohyama yelled. The fellow space cadets nodded quickly in farewell and rushed after their friends.

* * *

"Hey, you're the Keeper's sister, right?" Xoltan greeted. "Sorry about almost pulling my gun on you earlier." 

"Oh, it's all right," Xandra almost replied in Japanese, but caught herself. "After you left, Agent Xond showed up and did it for reals."

"Is that so?" His voice was grim, but when she looked, the officer was smiling. "I'm supposed to take you to the future Queen, here. Xolarus was gonna do it himself, but she chokes up every time he comes near her."

"Maybe his after-shave's too strong…" the Xian girl winced when she realized what an air-headed comment that was. "I, I can't really blame her. It must be terrifying."

"Yeah…" Xoltan sighed. "Awful, isn't it? But it's tradition. At least he decided not to blow up her hometown after all… after this, I'm running back to see if he'll let me throw the next dart."

"Tradition," Xandra muttered. She wore a dark gray dress, the most formal she owned, and a pair of black dress shoes she hadn't used the whole Expedition. One of the Keeper's pets, a white dragon, rested across her shoulders, its tail coiling down one arm. When Xoltan tried to pet the little creature, it snapped at his fingers.

"So you got hypno-trained in an Earthman language?" he asked, wringing his hand.

"Yeah…"

"How did it make you feel?"

"I have a pounding headache and I can't think straight."

"Oh, you too? I thought I was the only one! Well, here we are." Xoltan stopped at a closed door. "Xaka—_ahem_, Sakaki has a run of the ship, but she hasn't moved from her room since we left her here. We haven't been surveiling or anything, so you're on your own. Good luck and stuff."

"Thanks…" When he said 'Future Queen,' the enormity of this visit slammed in on Xandra. It took her a few minutes after Xoltan left to compose herself and try the door. "Ex-excuse me? Ms. Sakaki?" she called timidly, remembering to switch to Japanese. "May I talk to you, please?"

There was a few seconds of controls-fumbling on the other side of the door, and then it hissed open to reveal Sakaki. Xandra jumped. _Great space—she's beautiful! _"S-sorry to bother you. I'm, that is…" under the towering woman's gaze, Xandra faltered. "My name is Xandra, and I, uh…" _And she's huge! Holy crap, she could wrestle Ghidora! She could break my neck with two fingers!_

"Would you like to come in?" Sakaki asked finally. She seemed to have even less of an idea on what to say than her visitor.

"P-please."

Sakaki stood aside and she ventured cautiously into the Future Queen's room. It wasn't anything special, but space was at a premium on starships, especially ones carrying 150-meter long monsters in their holds. Xandra stood uncomfortably by while her host took a chair and gazed at her calmly, apparently ready to wait her out.

(Sakaki almost seemed to be a bit shy herself, but… nah…)

"I… uh… heard you liked animals. My brother's the ship's Keeper, so I thought you'd, uh… want to meet…" Here was a girl who'd been abducted from her own home by freaking _aliens! _Of _course _she'd be interested in meeting a stupid dragon! Xandra felt more and more like an idiot as she continued. "Well, I thought you'd like him."

She held her arm out towards Sakaki and the dragon climbed sinuously along it, stretching its long neck towards the Future Queen and darting its tongue at her. _Ffft! Ffft!_ Sakaki leaned back a little, looking pensive.

"He… won't bite you," Xandra offered, more nervous than ever.

"I'm not so sure," Sakaki replied softly. There might have been a hint of humor in her voice, but it was hard to tell. In any event, she reached out slowly and, with two fingers, stroked the dragon's long snout. There was a long moment where Xandra was confident the beast would bite Sakaki's fingers off and doom would befall them all, but then…

The dragon trilled and leaned into the Earth girl's fingers, prompting her to stroke it again, the tiniest hint of a smile forming on her lips. Xandra all but melted into a puddle of relief.

* * *

Competitive as she was, it was only natural that Kagura aimed to be the first of the girls to get a driver's license. Just as soon as it was legal, she'd rushed out and grabbed her next piece of adulthood; and though many good-natured jokes were made at her expense, she was a generally competent driver. 

Rousted from bed by her parents and turned out to meet her friends, she was less than enthusiastic to join this Fellowship of the Egg. "This had better be good," she grumbled, leaning tiredly on the trunk of her family's car. It had been a tortuous, disappointing swim-meet and she was running on three hours of sleep for the past 48-hours.

"Thank you so much, Ms. Kagura!" Chiyo cried, "I'm so sorry we had to…"

"Sure, sure," Kagura waved impatiently. "Where're we going?"

"Sendai," Yomi said, "And in a hurry!"

"In a hurry, eh? What do you guess is the speed record for Tokyo to Sendai?"

"Um, we don't have to…" Chiyo started nervously.

"Do it in an hour!" Tomo challenged.

"I'll do it in half!" Kagura yelled, "Get in the car!"

"But-!" the prodigy was frantic, remembering a time when Kagura had boasted that on the road Ms. Yukari had nothing on her…

"They're only joking," Yomi said placatingly, taking Chiyo's shoulder. "I hope."

And so they set about the delicate task of fitting six girls into a car that should really only carry four. Naturally, Tomo pounced on shotgun; this made their already perilous situation even worse, for on top of sleep deprivation and trying for speed, Kagura would now have to contend with a constant distraction as well.

Just before they set out, Kagura glanced over to Osaka, who'd sunk miserably into the backseat opposite her. "You look like shit," she said sympathetically.

"You too," Osaka replied absently, her mind obviously elsewhere. If any of the group had been thinking clearly, they probably would have insisted that she see a doctor. Of course, there are a lot of things they might have done, had they been thinking clearly: taken a train, for instance, or perhaps broached the subject of alien invasion with an adult… ah, but then we'd have no story!

"Okay, ready guys? Let's go!" And so Kagura's time trial to Sendai began. It seemed that the name "Operation: Road Trip to Certain Death" was becoming more and more fitting…

…but, after about twenty minutes, it turned out that this would not be the crazy ride Chiyo was dreading. It seemed that there were quite a few people also trying to leave Tokyo. This pricked at Osaka's memory, but for the life of her, she couldn't think of what it was they'd all forgotten.

"So they put out an announcement on the TV and nobody did anything?" Kaori asked incredulously. "What the hell is everyone thinking?"

Yomi shifted uncomfortably. Since she was the largest person crammed in the back, she'd been stuck on the end with Kaori half-sitting on her. "Be reasonable! It was a blue guy threatening Tokyo with a giant monster. Everyone just thought it was a hoax."

"But Godzilla came out of the bay this morning! If there's one giant monster couldn't there be others?"

"You should have heard him, though; it was pretty tacky." Yomi considered. "Especially the way he said 'people of Earth.' If he wants to scare anyone, he'll have to work on his enunciation."

"What time is it?" Osaka asked vaguely.

"About nine," Chiyo answered.

"Ah. Hehe… he's late…" She slowly stroked the egg. Eerily, her fingers left deeper pink trails on its gritty surface. So _that's _what she had been trying to remember… "Doesn't look like he's comin' today after all…"

Kaori was not to be deterred. "What else did he say? Anything about abducting people, or…?"

"No, but before he was cut off, he started talking about how he was going to take a bride…" Yomi stopped in midsentence. "No."

"No!" Kaori agreed.

"_No!_" Yomi repeated vehemently.

"No!" Osaka hadn't been listening, but she was willing to join in the game.

The whole backseat was silent for a time, letting this notion sank in. Of course, it isn't really necessary to tell you what Kaori's reaction was, except to note that it extremely violent, loud and very nearly got them pulled over before she calmed down.

Meanwhile, deep in space, Xolarus's ears started ringing. He was discomfited; according to Planet X's folklore, your ears rang only when somebody, somewhere, decided to subject you to a painful, horrible death. Judging by the intensity, it seemed that his new enemy wanted to gouge his heart out with a blunt object and force him to watch its last beating.

The Prince absently made a sign to ward off evil and went back to planning the assault of King Ghidora.

(A/N: So, as you can see, Kagura isn't Gabira after all, but it was a goodidea andI was tempted. Please,8,tell me you _didn't _watch "Godzilla's Revenge" all the way through!)


	9. Bad Day for Earth

(A/N: I recognize that people don't come to the AzuDai section to read about giant monsters kicking the snot out of each other, but I was having just _so_ much fun…)

"People… _of _Japan," Xolarus announced. "Thanks to your wonderful future Queen, the metropolis of To_kyo_ is safe! However! A demonstration of our power is still necessary. Our intelligence indicates that the creature you call Godzilla is on a small island some ninety kilometers from your shores… watch the sky carefully, Earthmen, and know that our ultimate weapon is loose on your world!"

If he was going to say any more, it was forever lost as the gub'mint once more clamped down. "Pay no attention to the blue man," the same hard-faced official said upon retaking the signal. "There are no aliens and there is no invasion."

Perhaps this assertion would have been more convincing if people who looked up couldn't see an unnatural, unwinking point of light hanging in the Eastern sky. Needless to say, they watched _very _carefully.

* * *

"It's been an hour," Tomo said matter-of-factly, casting a calm look around at the dense traffic. "You know what that means." 

"Huh?" Kagura gave a start; she'd been on the edge of falling asleep.

"YOU LOSE!" The wildcat idiot burst into hysterical laughter, drawing the baffled attention of the people in the next car. Happily, the light ahead of them changed before she could start making faces at them.

Instead of retorting, Kagura punched her on the arm. When Tomo tried to counterattack, she protested, "You can't hit me, I'm driving!" and punched her again. Their conflict could only escalate…

"Well, at least _they're_ having a good time," Yomi muttered in the backseat.

"Something just occurred to me," Chiyo piped up. She'd been sitting on Osaka's leg and so had to turn back to address her. "Ms. Osaka, are you awake?"

"Eh?" One dark eye half-opened. "…yeah."

"If you really have to go to Birth Island, shouldn't we get you a radiation suit or something to protect you? I could call my father and ask him to order one through the Sendai office."

Osaka stared at her for a few seconds as if she'd spoken English, then smiled wanly and waved the offer off. "Don' worry 'bout it. Mothra's got me."

"But…" Chiyo wanted to believe the older girl, but she sounded so _resigned_. Her bleak gaze was more frightening than any space demon, for while Osaka's words said that it was taken care of… her eyes said that it didn't matter.

* * *

Xandra reacted faster than thought, catching the dragon's head between two fingers and jerking it away, ribbons of blood twisting between its vicious little fangs and Sakaki's punctured arm. The creature hissed and snarled, beating its leathery wings and laying about with all four sets of barbed claws, covering its master's arm and face with scratches. 

Sakaki regarded the blood oozing through her sleeve in blank surprise. One minute Xandra's pet had been cuddling right up to her, the next…

"Bad dragon!" Xandra snapped in X-lish, swatting it exactly once—but when the beast was duly punished, her wrath turned on herself. "I'm so sorry!" she wailed in Japanese, "I should have warned you about sudden moves! Are you all right? Oh, oh… let me see that…"

"It's okay," Sakaki said as the Xian girl took her arm and frantically pulled her sleeve up. The wound wasn't nearly as bad as a few she'd gotten from the biting cat. "Please, don't worry."

"Don't worry?" Xandra was nearly in tears. "But you're hurt!"

Sakaki took her shoulder with her other hand. "It's fine. I shouldn't have moved so suddenly… it's okay. Don't worry."

Xandra stood and walked quickly across the room, depositing the dragon on a chair as she passed. A cabinet in the wall hissed open beneath her touch and she withdrew a reel of bandage and a disinfectant spray.

"At least let me do this," she pleaded. "I'm such a moron… meeting the future Queen, of course I had to bring the jumpiest…" at this point she lapsed into X-lish, and Sakaki could only nod sympathetically as she muttered away, agile fingers quickly cleaning and bandaging the twin punctures. "I'm so, so sorry…"

"I'm used to it… are _you_ okay?" Sakaki asked.

"Why wouldn't I…?" Xandra ran a finger over some of the scratches on her cheek, then laughed. "Oh, no problem. Happens to me all the time."

Sakaki nodded, relieved. "What were we talking about?"

"Huh?" Xandra thought back. "Oh… uh, you were telling me about 'cooking.' It sounds so interesting!"

"But what do your people do?"

"I guess they might cook back home, but I'm a space brat. I've lived on instant shipboard stuff my whole life."

"Your whole life?"

"I've only been on Planet X twice, and never more than a few days. And to tell you the truth, it's not that much different from the ships 'cause they were driven underground by Ghidora before we tamed him… and you know something?"

Sakaki indicated that she was listening.

"I think it's kinda weird how his name doesn't start with 'X' like everyone else's. It's how we mark people and important places, y'know? It's almost like he came from somewhere else… wait, 'King!' That's an Earth word, isn't it? What does it mean?"

Sakaki wasn't sure of her English. "Like a ruler, I think."

"Huh. I wonder what he rules, then. Maybe the dragons?" She reached out and her pet dragon leapt onto her arm, winding back to its habitual place on her shoulders. "Do you owe him fealty, little guy?"

Listening to her ponder the meaning of Ghidora's name made Sakaki realize who the Xian reminded her of. Xandra had mostly dispelled the unrelenting terror that had dogged her since her abduction; it was good to know that not all of these people where psychopaths and megalomaniacs.

The Invasion of Earth. Sakaki was painfully aware that, until she and Xolarus were (gulp!) married, she had no say with the Xians. Funny, but now that she had enjoyed a few minutes to brace herself and calm down, it seemed that her poker-face was holding inside as well. She realized that, as Queen of Earth, she'd be able to stop the fighting, or at least moderate it. That was a good thing, right? That must be what Xond had meant by her chance to save the Earth…

But _marriage_?

"Thinking of changing your name?" Xandra asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"I mean, there's nothing wrong with Sakaki, but without the X, it won't sound like a person's name to the Xians. It'd be like having… Queen Footstool or something."

The door chime went off, startling both of them. The dragon registered its surprise by sinking its teeth into Xandra's arm, but she didn't seem to notice. "Who's… who's there?" Sakaki called.

"Second-in-command Xethnex," that worthy answered from outside.

"And third-in-com—" _thump!_ "Ow!"

"I said _I'd _handle this! Just watch!" Xethnex hissed, then cleared his throat and spoke naturally. "Ms. Sakaki, I must speak with you about a fairly urgent matter."

The girls looked at each other. "Come in," Sakaki finally said.

Xethnex entered rather diffidently and took a chair near to the door. It creaked ominously, but the heavyset man obviously knew what he could get away with. Xoltan took a position at his side and leaned against the wall more casually. "Hello, there," the second greeted, "I'm sorry we had to meet under such… strained circumstances."

"Me too."

"It is a great responsibility to thrust on someone who's so young. Unfortunately, you don't know just _how _great. The situation is even direr than you might think."

Sakaki looked around, meeting each pair of golden eyes in turn. Xandra clearly didn't know what was going on, but the two officers seemed almost to pity her. "How?" she finally asked.

"Prince Xolarus is an advocate for taking worlds with a minimum of bloodshed. He doesn't believe that we must act like the conquerors of old to get those worlds that we need." Xethnex's tone darkened, "His father the King is not of that opinion. It is only with the greatest of reservations that he agrees to let Xolarus have this chance, and he's watching us every step of the way.

"If the Prince falters in any significant way, the King will come to Earth with his own space monster and take its resources using _his_ method. The last world taken thus, you call Mars. Once it was verdant, but it has been reduced to a blasted desert by the very creature that we are loosing on your world.

"Now, many aspects of our invasion are being monitored, but the most vital as far as the King is concerned, and what he considers the greatest duty of any individual man, is how Xolarus manages his bride."

You could have heard a pin drop. "That's you," Xoltan said helpfully, earning another blow. "_Ow!_ "

"So… if I don't marry him…" Sakaki's eyes were wide.

"Your world will die."

* * *

"Sorry guys, but I can't drive like this…" Kagura gave a thunderous yawn that would have done Osaka proud. "I need to sleep. Anyone got money for a hotel or something?" 

Everybody instantly looked to Chiyo. She winced, but then relented, withdrawing a slender wallet from her back pocket. "I guess this counts as an emergency."

"It's been a long day," Yomi added. "We all need rest."

Kaori looked around frantically. How could she sleep when Sakaki was in trouble? They had to stop the aliens and save her! There wasn't time to--an involuntary yawn strained her jaw. Curse her frail body and its needs!

They pulled into a small hotel just as the last of the sea-green twilight was fading in the West. And in the East, that unholy light burned steadily like the Eye of Sauron, promising a grim fate for the world beneath its fiery gaze.

* * *

Xandra slept uneasily, half-curled on her pallet with the covers twisted around her, clutching the much happier white dragon like a stuffed animal. The Keeper paused over her on his way out and gently brushed a gray lock of hair out of her face. He was glad that she wouldn't see the advent of Ghidora. 

Now he would be acting in his full capacity as Keeper, directing the space monster's actions on a hostile world. With any luck, the humans would surrender when they saw Ghidora's might and Earth would be theirs by the time the sun rose on Japan again. Of course that was wishful thinking; the Keeper had no doubt many Earthmen would die.

As he strode to the bridge, a colossal pair of red eyes opened in the blackness of the main hold and the beating of that great heart grew in strength until it throbbed through the whole ship. Orange eyes opened as the hold was thrown into relief by powerful floodlights. Yellow eyes opened as the decking began to slide open, revealing the impossibly bright expanse of Earth far below.

Ghidora fell.

Leathery wings wrapped batlike about his body and already glowing with friction., 60,000 metric tons of golden malice plunged through the upper atmosphere. It was at this point that the government official appeared on television and said that they were very sorry and yes, there was actuallyan alien invasion. The populace didn't take much convincing.

This living comet shrieked through the cloud cover over Tokyo Bay before King Ghidora's wings spread, catching his massive weight with a thunderous clap of air-resistance. Tokyo's lights blazed off of his body as he loosed a gravelly shriek, first the center head, then with the left and right adding their voices, each a different pitch and horribly dissonant with the first.

To Tokyo's immense relief, he didn't stick around. Two heads scanning the dark waves keenly, Ghidora set out Northeast at nearly the speed of sound, paced by a flight of SDF fighters. The monster ignored them; the pilots' feelings weren't badly hurt.

Ghidora's objective became apparent as the minutes wore on. He was bound for Birth Island and the equally fantastic creature that called it home. He was bound to challenge the most powerful living thing on Earth: the King of the Monsters, Godzilla!

FEEL THE DRAMA!

Earthling tacticians rejoiced. They'd never seen such a formidable problem move so quickly to take care of itself before. Talk was even made of pay-per-view, but arrangements couldn't be made on such short notice. The Press tried to move in, halted by the SDF's ironclad no-fly zone around Birth Island. No great tragedy; the Press, as you know, is well-versed in round-the-clock coverage with nothing to report.

Millions of eyes around the globe were trained on the space demon as he closed on Birth Island and the battle that would decide Earth's fate. And through it all our heroines slept, unaware that they would awaken to a changed world!

* * *

Birth Island was a rapidly growing blotch on the horizon when Ghidora received his official welcome to Earth. Those watching didn't even see the beam; it just looked as though the universe (or their TV screen at least) had turned searing blue. 

The atomic ray struck Ghidora's chest before he even caught sight of the enemy, knocking him from the air for sheer surprise. As the spray from his fall roared up, the SDF boys peeled off; Godzilla had shown his gruesome skill at pegging fighters from the air several times in the past.

Ghidora thrashed and flailed underwater, finally managing to get his wings above the choppy foam. Unlike in many of the space monster's portrayals, they were jointed like a bat's, complete with fingers and nasty hooked claws. After a few prodigious beats, they lifted him skyward, great waterfalls rolling from beneath his scales.

Even as he struggled to rise, though, the beleaguered invader saw a titanic shadow slicing beneath the waves towards him. Before Ghidora got more than twenty meters into the air, his foe surged up from below and plowed into him, bringing both crashing down into the ocean and raising a mountain of spray visible from the mainland.

The invincible space demon's invasion was turning out to be fairly anti-climactic. Writhing desperately, he escaped the Earth monster's grip and started for the island again, shrieking in pain as Godzilla's teeth sank into one of his tails. Dragging his foe, Ghidora finally made landfall, crashing into the barren stone of Birth Island and struggling to rise.

Godzilla followed confidently, plodding onshore and giving spectators their first view of Earth's champion. He… oh, hell, you know what Godzilla looks like! It's important to note, however, that the beast moved with shocking grace, not at all like a little guy in a 300 pound costume. He roared at the larger monster, waiting for him to rise with what could only be contempt.

Suddenly, though, one of Ghidora's tails lashed back, sinking the cluster of barbs at its tip into Godzilla's throat. The Earth monster made a sound that was half-grunt and half-gurgle, grabbing the tail with both hands as the other dug into his stomach. His foe turned sideways, the rightmost head spewing a jagged gravity beam that left an ugly, smoldering wound across Godzilla's chest.

The spikes burst free from his throat with a gush of pale green blood and Godzilla waded forward, roaring in fury. The space monster beat his wings once, hopping and turning to face him, then all three heads sprayed gravity beams all over Godzilla, almost knocking him off his feet.

It was then that the King of the Monsters did something new and completely surprising. He _ran_. More enraged than ever before, Godzilla charged towards his alien foe, the thunder of his tread making seismographs on the Japanese mainland jitter.

For a moment, it seemed certain that nothing could stand against the saurian's fury… but then Ghidora's right head lashed out like a viper and latched onto his already much-abused throat. The left head snapped down and took hold of his thigh, and the center caught his arm. Ghidora took to the air for just a moment, letting the other monster's momentum carry him under and releasing him so that he could stumble on through and crash into a convenient mountainside.

King Ghidora whirled and started firing gravity beams into the billowing dust and smoke; from the horrible sounds that issued forth, it was clear that they were connecting. Suddenly, things didn't look so good for the Monster King, and unfortunately for Earth, the space monster didn't look back.

Some five minutes later, as Ghidora hauled his defeated foe over the ocean and dropped him in, a cheer rose on the invaders' bridge, punctuated by the _pop-pop-pop_ of Space Champaign uncorking. But even as Xoltan poured him a glass, the Keeper couldn't bring himself to enjoy their triumph _too_ much.

After all, if the Earthmen didn't capitulate, their city of Sendai would be next.


	10. Shock and Awe

Even in the middle of the night with a malevolent full moon hanging over their heads, the air seemed oppressively warm. Ohyama surveyed the scene with a feeling of anticlimax; the tiny, nondescript, unlabeled shrine would have been a fairly short drive from Naha, but as soon as they set foot on the island, the boys were on their own, and none had wanted to spring for a taxi. A long, miserable hike ensued.

"A li-i-i-i-itle to the right," Kazuki said, making little scooting gestures with his hand. Sanada sighed and slid the Shiisa to his right. "No, no, _my _right. Uhh… uhh… there! No! Stop! Um… now a bit to the- my- okay, _your _right…"

Quickly boring of this scene, Ohyama wandered away and moved along the cliff to where Osamu stood, aloof and antisocial as ever, gazing out to sea. "Hey," the bespectacled boy asked, "You know where Kiyoshi is?"

"Maybe we passed a shiny object," Osamu suggested.

In spite of himself, Ohyama chuckled. "Very likely." They stood listening to the waves and Kazuki's increasingly frustrated directions for a few minutes before he spoke up again. "Why's Kazuki _doing_ that? I thought the only instruction was to make sure the rising sun would hit its eyes."

"Didn't you know?" Osamu's tone was flat. "He comes from a long line of Fung Shui Masters. I assume he wants to place the statue auspiciously."

"Oh, wow. So all this time he's known…?"

"Ah, no, his father gave up on him years ago. Doesn't stop him from trying, though."

Ohyama rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked back at the shrine. "Whatever happens had _better_ be worth it…"

* * *

By now, these hyperrealistic dreams had become old hat. Osaka lay in the grass under a soft pink sky, watching the looping flight of fireflies with mellow eyes and wishing that it was just a tiny bit warmer. Mothra's egg rested against her side; she could _feel _it sponging her life away, but for some reason just couldn't begrudge it.

Of course, she wouldn't be having one of these dreams for no reason. It wasn't long before one of the Shobijin approached and stood watching the sky with her. "This isn't the scene I was expecting," the priestess observed.

"Hm?"

"It seems like every person we entrust Mothra to reacts in one of two ways—either they're filled with enthusiasm and rush out to save the world, or they panic and flee to its far corners. We've never had someone just sort of… drift along like you are. The strain must be immense--it always is—but still you manage this weird sort of content. It's kind of refreshing."

Osaka propped herself up on an elbow and regarded the fairy oddly. "There's only one of ya. And you're bigger! Didja eat your sister or something?"

"Of course not!" Lefty cried, appalled. "She's off talking to _your_ sister just now."

"I have a sister? That's weird, 'cause my mom always complained about how hard it was having me, and I don't think she'd-" The realization slapped Osaka in the face just then… the Shobijin wasn't any bigger after all; Osaka herself was smaller! "Uh."

"No, no, I mean your sister in the metaphysical sense."

"Ah…" So she had a metaphysical sister somewhere, eh? It was a really interesting thought, but--Osaka glanced at the egg with a soft sigh. There wouldn't be much of a point in getting to know her _now_, would there? All the same… "She feelin' as blue as I am?"

"You have no idea."

"An' I've been meanin' to ask something." A nod. "This egg here… is it mine?"

"Yours? Well, it was entrusted to you… ah, but I see that's not what you mean. Well, you know, Mothra _has_ bonded with you, and your spirit will be reflected in the avatar, so I guess you could look at it that way."

"Huh…" The Soul of Something sat up and took the egg into her lap. "I wonder if I'll get to see him before I," she faltered, voice thickening, "before I… flicker out."

"Now hold on! We said it was a possibility, but there's no reason to assume you'll…"

"I miss a lot 'o things," Osaka interrupted, distress oozing through her calm, "But I know how much I have to give, an' it's not enough. Just. Not."

"But… hey, what did you mean, 'he'? Mothra is female!"

Though Osaka didn't show a hint of menace, the Shobijin still took a startled step back when she suddenly grinned. "Guess that makes _two _things I figured out before you guys."

"Just what are you saying?" the priestess asked, distressed, "You don't mean to tell me that-!" _THUD!_ Osaka snapped awake on the hotel room's floor, having dragged the covers on her way down. She might have felt guilty about this, but Tomo had been hogging them all night.

As she lay there, a voice slid through her mind almost sheepishly, in a _'_sorry-I-forgot-to-mention' sort of way. "_All roads lead to Sendai,_" the shobijin murmured in closing, "_There you'll only have one chance to save Andrea._"

_Andrea? Who the heck is Andrea?_ But she was already drifting off again.

* * *

Xandra slid out of bed, wincing as her bare feet fell on the icy decking. It was still the middle of the ship's night, but she knew that there would be no going back to sleep. The dragon rolled onto the warm spot left by her body, drowsily humming its satisfaction, and for an absurd moment, she felt a stab of resentment towards the beast. _It_ surely wasn't troubled by nocturnal visitors and mental voices telling it to do crazy things!

A silvery nightgown flickered about her knees as she moved through the small suite, coming to the tap. A healthy dash of water to her face pushed fatigue back and left her blinking into her reflection's wide, bewildered eyes.

"Disgusting," Xandra muttered. "No wonder everyone around here treats me like a bloody twelve-year-old."

There was no point in moping around the room any longer, and she'd never get her spot back from the dragon anyway. (She remembered its name belatedly- but not how to spell or pronounce it. Xcisha? Xixxsha?) Dressing quickly, she set out to stalk the darkened corridors until the day started.

As she wandered, her mind went over all of the things the fairy woman had said. Ridiculous! Xolarus wouldn't have come with all of his high-minded ideas of preserving life and granting other races dignity bringing a ravenous space demon that was impossible to restrain. And what was this about having a sister among the Earthmen? It was just too much!

She needed some time to sit and think. No overbearing brother, no looming Ghidora, no intimidating Earth girl and no…

"Ahem." Xandra whirled, frozen on the very edge of screaming. Agent Xond leaned the wall behind her, smiling thinly and reaching into his jacket's inside pocket significantly. "I take it you had another dream."

* * *

Naturally, Sendai was evacuated at alien's next ultimatum. How was it managed? Where did the people go? You're already asking too many questions. It is only important that the conveniently empty city, an essential ingredient of any battle between giant monsters, was supplied.

Still flush from their victory over Godzilla that afternoon, the brave men of G-Force rumbled into the city and took their positions. Lasers were recharged, tactics adjusted and anti-Godzilla cadmium shells switched out for more conventionally lethal armor-piercing. They were ready. They were PSYCHED!

Of course, being psyched counts for absolutely nothing where invincible space monsters and the workings of fate are concerned. Earth's deadline was midnight, the alien prince had pronounced with self-conscious melodrama, and if they did not surrender by midnight then there would be nothing to save Japan.

At 11:56, the brooding overcast in the Eastern sky started to turn ominously. Minutes passed, and it became a veritable whirlpool, filled from within by a slowly growing golden light. Though uneasy muttering spread through the ranks, the commander put a stop to it with an eloquent sneer. "Dramatic bullshit," he growled around a cigarette. "It's nothing but…"

"Sir--!" The warning came too late. In eerie silence, exactly on the stroke of midnight, a trio of jagged beams lashed out of the swirling brightness and played over the ranks of defenders. For the briefest of instants men and machines were hauled into the air, wreathed in angelic light—

--and then the streets of Sendai became a sea of flame.

King Ghidora descended from the dark clouds, each thunderous beat of his wings filling the city with howling wind. Rather than writhe about, burbling senselessly, his three heads moved with viperish speed and deadly purpose. Gravity beams scythed this way and that, sowing explosions and death wherever they fell.

A few strident blue lasers stabbed skyward, but they had absolutely no effect except to draw the monster's lethal attention. Before he even made a full pass of Sendai, its defenders had broken and fled, chased by his hideous tri-toned cackle. Patches of his great body still glowing from laser strikes, Ghidora swept over the burning city that was now his.

Unaware of the irony, he chose the Mihama Heavy Industries Manufacturing Works building as his throne. It crumpled horribly under his colossal weight, windows blowing out into the ruined streets and structural members shrieking, but held. So perched on this former center of resistance, the golden gargoyle folded its wings and waited for dawn, daring a stunned world to do its worst.

* * *

Chiyo returned to the hotel room with yesterday's evening newspaper under her arm and a tray of pastries. Her friends were still sprawled all over the room, painted by the soft morning light; Kagura had claimed the table as soon as they'd entered, while Yomi resigned herself to the floor. As for the beds, one had been shared by Kaori and Chiyo, while the other… well, "shared" wasn't exactly the right word for what Osaka and Tomo were doing. History had never seen such a furious duel between somnambulists.

Still, there was a little time to enjoy the quiet. Kagura had asked for six hours of sleep; Chiyo was eager to oblige, being uneasy enough about this whole "roadtrip" thing with a fully-rested driver. She took the room's only chair, setting the pastries aside and flipping the newspaper open.

'_SPACE MONSTER INVADES!_' the headline shrieked. The then article described the repeated, somewhat confused, ultimatums of this 'Xolarus' character, detailed the second trouncing of Godzilla (_poor guy had a bad day,_ Chiyo thought absurdly), and went on to say that Sendai was under threat of attack by midnight if the governments Earth didn't capitulate. Naturally, no such surrender was in the cards.

So the attack, however it'd gone, had already been decided. Chiyo considered turning on the TV news, but elected to content herself with the paper rather than wake her friends.

Near the end of the article, however, was something that gave her serious pause._ The success of G-Force can in large part be attributed to Mihama Heavy Industries, which, though well known for textiles, medical supplies and dozens of other products, finds most of its business producing experimental weapons systems for paramilitary units around the globe._

_"I can't say I'm proud to be in this business," says Yasuhiro Mihama, founder and President of MHI, "But I am glad our products are being put to such a noble purpose as the defense of Earth."_

Though she knew it wasn't justified, Chiyo felt profoundly betrayed. Sure, her father wasn't obligated to tell her every little detail of his company business, but… in light of this, she could think of at least four separate occasions he'd blatantly lied to her in order to keep these, er, _projects_ a secret from her. And, now that she thought about it, there were certain, more disturbing things he might not have been entirely truthful about.

"I smell doughnuts…" Kagura mumbled thickly, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. Recognizing that the athlete could go through pastries like a demon on marijuana, Chiyo moved quickly to get the others up. The bustle and clamor of their rising helped her forget her momentary angst.

"What a horrible night! How could I get any sleep sharing a bed with _this?_" Tomo sulked. "Goddamn, how can someone with a kadjillion degree fever still have feet like blocks of ice, huh? And hey, why don't you thrash around a little bit more next time?"

"Sorry. Bad circulation."

"How do you feel, Ms. Osaka?" Chiyo asked in concern, pressing a hand to her friend's forehead and stifling a gasp. The "kadjillion degree fever" had in fact faded, which would have been reassuring if it hadn't been replaced by an awful, clammy chill. The egg-bearer's face was pale and drawn, her expression miserable, even more haggard than when they'd taken refuge.

"Actually, I feel a lot better now," Osaka assured her. The young prodigy could be forgiven for her skepticism. Before she had to act on it, though, Yomi stepped up to the plate admirably: "Well, you look better, too," she said, almost convincingly.

"What are you talking about?" Tomo yelped, "She looks like--!" Her best friend's hand clapped over mouth with enough force to rattle her teeth. "Just fine," she mumbled sullenly around Yomi's fingers.

"By the way," Osaka asked, casting a glance after Kagura as she disappeared into the bathroom for a quick shower. "Do we know anyone named Andrea?"

"I can't think of anyone," Yomi said, and Tomo shrugged. For her part, Chiyo opened her mouth, looked uncomfortable, then stood and started to walk away. She hadn't made it four feet, though, before she was brought up short by Tomo's abrasive voice. "Ut! We all saw that, Chiyo-suke! Get back here."

"I'm, uh, not sure if I'm supposed to tell you guys," Chiyo replied, eyes averted.

"Ooh, this sounds good!"

Yomi sighed. "You know she won't leave you alone until you tell her. You might as well spare us a long ride with her moaning and wheedling."

"Well…" Chiyo looked at the ground. "It's… Ms. Sakaki. She signs things 'Nanashi,' but her… uh, her full name is Andrea Nanashi Sakaki. I, I just saw it when I was handing out transcripts, and since she never told us, I thought…"

"Andrea? What the hell kind of name is that?" Tomo scoffed, butchering the pronunciation.

"Her mother is American, you know," Yomi pointed out.

"Oh! Well, _that_ explains 'em…"

"What, her blue eyes?" Chiyo asked.

Tomo shrugged. "Well, that. Actually, I was thinking of her humongous boobs." She didn't seem to notice when everybody cringed. Would she have cared even if she had?

"You seem ta do that a lot, y'know?" Osaka had that almost-sly look of hers out again. "Makes a person wonder…"

"You-!" Tomo shook her fist. "If you weren't sick, I'd pop you right in the mouth! In fact, you know what? I think I'll-"

Now, this whole time, Kaori had been sitting on her bed brooding, but she exploded into action before Tomo could carry out her threat. In an instant she was in their midst, grabbing Osaka by a (figurative) lapel. "_Where_ did you get that name from? Did you have another one of those freaky psychic dreams?"

"Y-yeah…"

"Stop that! Leave her alone!" Yomi snapped, swatting her hands down. The Bespectacled One was about to say more, but the intensity of the next question brought her up short. "_What's going to happen to Ms. Sakaki?_"Kaori asked wildly. "What did your dream say?"

"Uh… uh… all roads lead to Sendai. An' that we'll only have one chance…"

"She'll be at Sendai? Well what are we waiting for?" There was a few seconds of stunned silence after she tore out of the room. Finally, Yomi walked to the window and glanced down to the car. "Wow, she's already outside! Here, Tomo and I'll go and keep her out of trouble."

"Hey, I still have to beat up this little--!" Tomo protested as she was dragged away.

They sat and listened to Tomo's complaining fade into the distance and Kagura's feeble attempt to imitate Nanase Aikawa in the shower. After a minute or so, Osaka sat up and leaned on the wall behind the bed, taking the egg into her lap and sagging back. What little animation she'd shown before bled away as her eyes drifted shut.

"Ms. Osaka?" Chiyo squeaked.

"S'okay… just a little tired." She pulled the blankets over the egg in her lap and rested her hands on it. Nearby, the shower died down along with the horrifying singing. "You know something, Chiyo-chan? It's… it's real stupid, but this egg…"

"Yes?"

"I can't help but feel like… like it's mine. Like when it hatches it'll be…" Kagura finally emerged as Osaka finished her sentence with relish. "…_my_ baby."

"_What?_" Kagura yelled, staring at her—and the blanketed lump—wide-eyed.

"Ms. Kagura, it's not what it-!" Chiyo cried.

"Never mind, forget it!" Kagura covered her eyes and waved her friend off. "I don't even want to know." She snatched her keys off of the table, grabbed the last doughnut and left, making it clear with her stride that the time-trial was on again. The prodigy turned back to her friend contemplatively.

Now, the thought of Osaka raising anything with more complicated needs than a chia-pet was a little frightening, but Chiyo couldn't help but be warmed by her happy maternal glow. It made her think that everything might be all right after all… "We'd better go," she said, taking the older girl's arm gently. "C'mon, Ms. Osaka."

* * *

"What on Earth are we waiting for?" Xethnex asked in vexation. "The Earthmen are off balance! They've just seen their mightiest weapons crushed! We have to press the advantage!"

"I disagree," Xolarus replied, hopping into the command chair and putting his feet up on a console. "Ghidora will remain in Sendai for now. His presence will draw out their strongest defenders, including this Guardian that Xandra was talking about. We can crush them in the empty city without killing too many more Earthmen."

"With respect, my Prince, I don't feel…" the second-in-command sputtered out when he saw Xolarus suddenly stand uncomfortably and nod respectfully to the entryway. Xethnex and the rest of the bridge turned as one to see what had inspired this.

Sakaki had entered the bridge, dressed for the first time as an Xian noble. The outfit should have looked awful and garish—lilac, button-up shirt, cream-colored pants, a light golden cloak that nearly closed in front of her and a slender circlet in her dark hair—but her bearing infused it with impossible dignity.

At least until she noticed everyone staring and looked down shyly, ruining the effect. Xandra followed at a respectful distance, wearing a dark dress with a gold stripe on one sleeve to mark her as a royal attendant and bearing the white dragon across her shoulders. Since she obviously wasn't needed as a Ghidora-keeper anymore, Xethnex had decided to put her to use this way. Their expressions were both extremely grave.

"Good morning," Xolarus greeted. "Did you sleep well?"

Sakaki nodded shortly. "Good morning."

"You'll be happy to know…" the Prince stopped in midsentence, realizing that in all likelihood, she would _not _be happy that Planet X had won the day. "Well. I'm glad you've come up. Here, take my chair and make yourself comfortable; we'll show you how things work around here. And Xan…"

At this point, the white dragon leapt from Xandra's back and latched on to his arm. He flinched in surprise, but then laughed and waved his guards back. "Ah, Xixsha! I mean, Xicksa! Uh… whatever!" The dragon sang as he stroked its back, obviously thrilled to see him. "Xandra, you can have Xethnex's chair. I'm sure he won't mind."

Grumbling, the portly second-in-command surrendered his chair. "As I was saying, my Prince, I don't feel that your plan is very wise. If we don't strike quickly, the Earthmen may discover a way to stop Ghidora!"

"Xethnex, King Ghidora ravaged our world for five hundred years before we figured out how to control him. Don't overestimate them. And before you can try and tell me that Earth's defenders won't attack him in Sendai… I'll bet you seven hundred space dinero that they come out of the woodwork within twelve hours."

"I'll take that," Xethnex replied stiffly. Before they could continue their conversation, an Xian in a white coat entered and knelt before the Prince, holding out a sheet of paper. "Doctor," the Prince nodded for him to rise. "I take it you've completed your studies?"

"Yes, my liege."

"Your conclusion, then?" Xolarus asked, looking the paper over disinterestedly.

The doctor cast a nervous glance at Sakaki. "They'll be a little pinkish, but there's no problem biologically." It took a moment, but a wave of nausea rolled through Sakaki when she realized what he was talking about. Xandra laid a hand on her arm, looking a little ill herself.

"S-sir!" the sensor operator suddenly cried, "Spectrography shows… I, I don't even know what this is!"

Xolarus pointed to his second in command and grinned, then walked up behind the operator. "Let me see that, son. Hmm… well, how very interesting. It's a large creature of some kind, 50 meters at least, moving across Kyushu towards the Space Monster. Who would've seen _that_ coming, huh?"

"Fifty meters? But our surveys didn't… where did it _come_ from?"

* * *

The boys stood in a loose line on the cliff, staring in shock. The shrine had fallen into the sea, along with about thirty tons of earth. Even then, the perpetrator of this damage was loping off over the horizon, raising a wild, ululating bellow.

"…oh my God!" Ohyama finally managed.

"Oh my _God!_" Sanada agreed.

"That… that was so… so…" Kiyoshi sputtered.

"Don't say it!" Osamu warned.

"So awesome!" he finished anyway.

There was another long pause as the thunder of the Azumi family guardian's passing faded and its brassy voice vanished on the wind. Still they stood, not daring to move or make a sound lest another titanic beast burst from the Earth. But then, after an interminable silence, Kazuki straightened his shirt cockily and started to swagger away. "How's _that_ for auspicious placement?" he crowed.


	11. Aree, Shiisa Aibiran!

(A/N: You know, calling them Xians is awkward, but it would be even worse if I was calling them X-Men, wouldn't it? Let us begin with what must be the fanfiction debut of one of the most obscure Godzilla monsters in history…)

Behold! I give you… King Caesar!

The mighty guardian of the Azumi family galloped across field and forest, freakishly light on his feet for a beast that tipped the scales at about 33,000 tons. His fierce, terrible bellowing rang out over the landscape, somehow lifting the hearts of all who heard.

He was, for all intents and purposes, a living Shisa, and he looked exactly like you'd expect a living Shisa to. In other words, pretty damn gruesome. His twisted, almost ape-like body was covered in a shaggy, tawny mane and occasional patches of dark scales. His mouth was ridiculously wide, filled with curving fangs, hideous lips folding out over the top of a beard that flowed down his broad chest. His wild eyes were huge, perfectly round and filled with the sort crazed gleam you'd expect from a Metallica concert-goer, one burnt orange and the other blood red.

Vaulting, tumbling and sprinting across Japan, King Caesar showed no fear of his coming confrontation with the horrible Space Monster. All that showed was the reckless enthusiasm and fierce joy for which he would forever be remembered.

* * *

The Mihama estate, early morning. It was unfortunate that Chiyo wasn't home today because it was exactly the sort that she loved. Quiet, breezy peace settled over the estate's spacious grounds like a thick blanket, broken only by birdsong, the distant rumble of Tokyo and…

"Woof! Woof! Woof woof woof woof wah-auuuuuu! Wau wau woof!" Mr. Tadakichi stood with his front paws on the veranda's rail, delivering this blistering denouncement with a fury scarcely less impressive than that of King Caesar. When his master approached, he lapsed into a loud, dangerous growl.

"What's wrong, boy?" Yasuhiro Mihama asked, coming out of the house in his bathrobe. "Chiyo come back in that silly costume again?"

Meanwhile, high in the yard's only stand of trees, two blue men in ninja garb were frantically conferring. "Did you _see_ that thing? It's flarggin' enormous! I'm not going out there!"

"You idiot, just shoot it! We weren't told not to kill ani-!"

"Hey, there!" Mr. Mihama called from the veranda. "I wondered when you lot would come poking around. Don't bother trying to hide; the thermal cameras can see you! And you should know, by the way, that I have a shotgun."

"Ha ha, smart guy!" one of the infiltrators yelled back. "We know it's illegal to own firearms in Xap-!" _BLAOW! _Buckshot ripped through the branches above their heads, causing much panicked cursing and scrambling.

"What on Earth are you doing, Yasuhiro?" Mrs. Mihama asked as her husband dragged a rocking chair out onto the veranda and sat with the gun across his lap. "Waiting for the spacemen," he replied matter-of-factly. Mr. Tadakichi barked happily.

* * *

"Hey, bored to death, yet?" Xoltan asked lightly in Japanese, leaning his forearm on the back of Sakaki's chair. "This's about as exciting as it gets up here."

As a matter of fact, Sakaki wasn't bored in the least. She sat in the Prince's command chair watching the proceedings with a deep, fascinated horror. This was, after all, the nerve center of the war against her very own green Earth! Though everything was happening in X-lish and very quickly, she began to acquire a passing familiarity with the order of things. "No," she answered simply.

"Wait till you get used to it. Then you start counting the minutes and… huh?" he leaned over and let a lowly sensor guy whisper in his ear. In X-lish: "Yeah, sure. I'll go check it out." Then, turning back to Sakaki with a grin: "Taking any excuse you can to get out. You girls want a drink or something?"

Sakaki shook her head. Xandra failed to respond; she was staring about in undisguised fascination, obviously unable to keep up with everything that was going on. The third-in-command bowed casually to his future Queen and hopped the rail to leave.

That conversation was, in its way, more disturbing than her abduction by Xond. If only the alien invaders were a horde of faceless stormtroopers, or hideous, tentacled monstrosities in three-legged war machines! Then it would be easier to hate them… but these blue people from the stars (or from beyond Jupiter, anyway) were just that: people. What would they do if they managed to conquer Earth? Would Xolarus give a straight answer if she asked?

She looked at the alien commander, leaning past the Keeper's shoulder and gesticulating over his board, spouting a constant stream of that weird, lyrical language. The dragon had taken up a position on one shoulder; though mostly ignored, it seemed to bask in the Prince's very presence. _This_ man had fallen in love with her?

To her knowledge, nobody ever had before.

Hell. The Xians thought they were doing what was right for Earth, and how did she know they were wrong? Of course, the Conquistadores thought they were doing a good thing, too… but _they_ hadn't brought space demons to the table. It just seemed a strange way to look at beings that had reached across the stars to them: _They don't know any better._

In short, Sakaki was pretty durn confused. All she could do was cooperate and hope that this horrible King she'd been told of didn't decide to step in and decimate Earth.

"My Prince!" Xond called, entering and hopping the rail to crouch on the console next to Sakaki. He hissed when he saw that he'd addressed the wrong person and wheeled about to face Xolarus. Now Sakaki didn't understand any of this exchange, but she got the emotional gist of it.

"What is it? And stand on the floor like a sentient being!"

Xond stepped down. He was wearing his Earthman makeup and business suit; his golden eyes looked a little jarring, but the prescribed sunglasses hung from his breast pocket. "I've got a lead on this 'Guardian' we've been worried about."

"Oh?" The Prince didn't notice that Xandra looked like she'd been kicked in the gut.

"Yes. With your leave, I am going to go down with two of my men. I believe that we can nip this problem at the bud."

"If that's the case, then go right ahead. Do I want to know?"

"No," the agent said unequivocally. "I will give you a call when the situation is resolved. Oh, and you should thank Xandra, here." He ruffled her silvery hair, making the poor girl cringe as if a bat had landed there. "It's thanks to her cooperation that I can do this."

"Well, good luck," the Prince said, quickly returning to his direction.

Sakaki looked over to her attendant. Xandra was breathing with difficulty, looking for all the world like the bridge was closing in on her. She continued to shudder long after Xond had left, choking on the cloud of malicious glee in his wake. "Are you all right?" Sakaki asked, feeling like a bit of an idiot.

"No," Xandra hugged herself. "I mean, yes. I…"

Sakaki stood and gently took her arm. When Xolarus glanced over, she said, "I'm sorry. I'm not feeling well."

"Oh, that's too bad. We liked having you… uh, when this other giant monster is dealt with, I was going down to inspect Sendai personally. It would mean a lot to me if you came as well, if you're feeling better."

"Sure."

"Xcisha!" Xandra called softly, holding out her arm. When the dragon didn't respond, she snapped a little, more upset than angry. "Xishka!"

Seeing this, Xolarus made a vague shooing gesture, setting dragon flapping back to her. "Here you go. And thanks for helping with the Guardian."

"N-no problem."

The two girls left together to the scattered well-wishes of a few officers. Xandra didn't speak until they had entered the elevator and the metallic disk beneath their feet was rushing down through a round shaft lined with slowly climbing circular lights. "I'm so… so sorry…" she whimpered. "I didn't mean to… he… I shouldn't have told him, but… but I…"

Sakaki didn't know quite how to respond, so she stood impassively, aching through her poker-face. She hated to see people and creatures in pain, especially cute ones. And Xandra was sorta cute in a weirdly pigmented sort of way.

"Does it bother you that your only attendant is a basket case?" she finally asked.

"What?" Sakaki blinked. "I don't think you're…"

"Ah, you still don't know me too well. I've had scrambled eggs for brains ever since I was little… oh, but this latest bit is priceless. Did you know I had a sister?"

"Uh…"

Xandra laughed bitterly. "According to the voices in my head, I do. She's an Earth girl! And do you know what else? She's carrying the guardian of Earth in an egg to some radioactive island! That's why Xond is going down, you know? He thinks there's something to it, and now I'm really hoping I am insane, because otherwise I might've doomed your world by being a spineless milksop!"

Sakaki looked down at her. "A… sister?"

"I thought he was going to kill me, so I told him everything!" she was crumpling in on herself; her emotional pendulum had swept all the way from bitter humor back to anguished despair. "Oh… I wish he had…!"

"Don't say that," Sakaki said firmly, laying an arm across her shoulders.

"You don't think it's really true?" she asked pathetically. "My sister and the egg and all that, do you?"

Sakaki opened her mouth to say something reassuring—then her heart stopped. Her mind rushed back to the previous morning, as she, Chiyo and Osaka walked to school. "_It looked like a fossilized mushroom, but now I think maybe it's an egg._" Could it be? Could the fate of the world have been entrusted to _Osaka?_

"You tensed," Xandra observed quietly. "What is it?"

"Nothing."

"You're not a tense person. What happened?"

Left no other option, Sakaki explained.

* * *

And so the journey of the Fellowship continued, racing down a rain-swept highway towards Sendai, which, thanks to Ghidora, was getting to be more and more like Mordor every moment. Tomo had once again claimed shotgun, much to the dismay of those consigned to the back. The ride was mostly silent, each, even Tomo, content to be alone with her thoughts.

"Say, Osaka?" Kaori asked diffidently. "You up?"

"Yep…" She lay back in her seat, shivering slightly, head tilted back and eyes shut. Chiyo had curled up and pressed herself against the older girl; this might have been uncomfortable except that (A) Osaka could really use the warmth and (B) Chiyo-chan is certifiably the most platonically cuddle-able human being on the face of the planet.

"I'm, uh, sorry about freaking out at you earlier. I mean, I wasn't thinking clearly, but I'm sure you don't need anyone yelling at you like that."

"Ah, that's fine," Osaka smiled slightly. "Don't have time to worry 'bout things like that now, anyway."

Kaori nodded, unsatisfied. "All the same…"

"What's this?" Kagura suddenly yelped.

"All right! It's the Fuzz!" Tomo cried. "Let's charge 'em!"

Instead, they coasted to a stop before the police barricade. "_Charge _them? Tomo, have you gone retarded?"

"No, I'm serious! C'mon, Kagura! We don't have any stars yet, so they shouldn't bring in the Army…" (Yes, I _know_ Japan doesn't have an official "Army.")

The driver glanced into the backseat. "Hey guys? She got that new Grand Theft Auto game, didn't she?"

"She did," Yomi said tiredly.

"Damn… well, I'll still beat it before you!" Kagura gave the wildcat a playful shove and turned back again. "Okay, seriously, what are we gonna do, guys?"

"I'm tellin' you…!"

"_Tomo!_" Yomi barked. "Shut! Up!" The grateful silence that followed saw a few seconds of furious thought, then Yomi continued in a much milder tone. "I really hate to say this, but if Sendai's closed off, we should probably go down the coast and find a boat somewhere else."

All eyes shot to Kaori. She struggled for a few seconds before giving a tight little nod. "Right. You're probably right." Operation: Rescue Sakaki, it seemed, was destined for failure… but, though she hated the conclusion from the pit of her soul, there were more important things on the line. "Right."

"Does your family have boats anywhere else?" Yomi asked.

"No. Well, one in Tokyo, but it doesn't have the range." Chiyo glanced at the barricade. "Maybe… maybe we should talk to them?"

"Couldn't we steal a boat?" Tomo suggested.

"Right, I nominate Yomi to go over there," Kagura said. "She looks the most like a respectable, mature adult." Of course, her light sprinkling of sarcasm couldn't compete with the marinade in Tomo's voice. "Yeah, jeez, how did _that _happen?"

"All right, all right," Yomi grumbled. "I'll go talk to them."

She stepped out of the car, smoothed out her clothes and wiped off her glasses. Adopting a serious expression, Yomi squared her shoulders and set out towards the line of police cars determinedly. To those watching from the car, she seemed to grow three or four inches taller. "Excuse me?" she called to a loose officer, "Excuse me, sir?"

"Huh?" he glanced over, setting his coffee down. He sure didn't look like our first line of defense against alien assault.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but my friends and I have to get into Sendai."

The cop looked at her oddly. "Why?"

"Well…" Yomi gave a start as a line of tanks started to rumble through the barricade next to them. As she glanced over, one was stopped and some officers started talking to the Tank Commander. "How do I put this? I'm traveling with Chiyo Mihama, and we have to get to the boat her family keeps here because one of my friends has the Guardian of Earth in an egg that we have to get to Birth Island so that it can hatch."

This warranted a good five-second stare. "Um, ma'am, have your medications just kicked in?" Yomi straightened angrily. "I'm sorry, but how do you expect me to believe such a ridiculous story? Er, hold on…" he called over his shoulder, "Hey, hurry up with those laser tanks! The spacemen could attack any minute!"

Yomi slapped her forehead. "Listen, I'm not lying--!" Her train of thought was brutally derailed by something huge, hairy and graceful that flashed by behind the officer and vanished into the city. "Holy crap, did you see that?" she shrieked, pointing.

The cop turned, but the whatever-it-was was already gone and his annoyance quintupled. "I think you'd better go, ma'am," he said through a thin layer of civility.

Yomi wandered back to the car in a daze, leaning heavily on the hood. "Did any of you see that?" she asked vacantly. "Did you…?"

"What?" Kagura asked, leaning out the window.

"This huge… devilish… thing."

"What, you mean like a rolly poly?" Osaka asked, eyes cracking open.

"No! Not like a rolly--! Never mind." Yomi shook her head, springing deftly into the present. "Okay. He wouldn't let us through, so what now?"

"Hijacking a police car's out, isn't it?" Tomo sounded disappointed but resigned. "I don't suppose we could get an assault rifle and blast our way through?"

* * *

King Caesar's great paws left jagged craters in the streets of Sendai as he pounded towards his foe. He skidded around a corner and at long last faced King Ghidora, a gleaming statue poised over a wide field of rubble. It was then that the imbalance between them became apparent; fifty meters tall made Caesar a colossus by any standard, but unfortunately, the Space Monster was more like _a hundred_ and fifty meters tall, and perching atop the Manufacturing Works made him seem even larger.

If he was bothered by the fact the other was more than twice his size, King Caesar didn't let on. He roared a challenge at the Space Monster, stomping his feet, capering, snarling and generally carrying on like a Mexican professional wrestler. Ghidora was less than concerned. Two heads swiveled unhurriedly towards the Earth monster and belched a pair of gravity beams at him.

If you put a gun to my head and forced me to name an onomatopoeia for the sound that followed, it would be _crick! Bweeeeeeen!_ Caesar's orange eye glowed with a strange internal light and a sphere of distorted air rushed out from it. As they crossed into the distortion, the gravity beams twisted out of their course and vanished harmlessly into the eye's burnt-orange depths.

Then, doubled in power and focus, they erupted from his red eye, snapping across the distance between them and driving into the Space Monster with sledgehammer force! Ghidora shrieked in surprise, toppling from his tower with an impossible crash and a billowing cloud of dust.

Caesar didn't waste any time, sprinting towards the dragon even as he fell, plunging a knobby hand unhesitatingly into a building and wrenching a great I-beam free in passing, vaulting to the top of the Manufacturing Works and then into the air over the Space Monster, bringing the improvised weapon up like a spear to plunge into Ghidora's exposed chest…

A golden tail swept him from the air, knocking the living shisa sprawling down another wide street. Gravity beams tore after him but bent crazily, slamming into skyscrapers or streaking off into the distance as he recovered with a rapid shake of his shaggy head.

Ghidora righted himself and took a menacing step towards the smaller monster—then jerked to the side as a hurled chunk of concrete whistled past his heads. One head glanced back after it—and was beaned from behind by another projectile. Caesar ripped a huge chunk out of the street beneath him and flung it discus-style at the golden beast, knocking him a stumbling back in a burst of pulverized pavement.

Caesar closed the distance between them quickly, swinging his I-beam bludgeon with a vengeance. It hummed like bo-staff as it made ringing contact with the dragon's armor again and again, making his sinuous body jerk about almost snake-like as he retreated clumsily.

One head made a wide, vicious sweep for him, but Caesar wove under it like a boxer and continued his assault unchecked. Other heads tried snapping at him like cobras, rewarded only with sharp blows in their snouts and skulls. It looked like Earth just might prevail…

Then the left head grabbed hold of Caesar's thick neck and broad shoulder, raising a harsh cry of pain. The right head snatched his I-beam while the center spewed a gravity beam down at him; gladly, he still had the presence of mind to sidestep even as his weapon was torn away.

With an almost negligent gesture, Ghidora flung him soaring into the air, hocking gravity beams after him that still warped in flight, but not by nearly as much. Caesar fell right through the Mihama Industry's building like a comet, smashing it beyond repair. He stumbled to a crouch, blood pouring from his shoulder, hand pressed to his forehead and suddenly not quite so cocky.

A final gravity beam lashed straight and true at his side, blowing a huge smoking wound into his flesh and knocking him tumbling through the wreckage of the Manufacturing Works. Caesar somehow found his feet out of the roll, wavering visibly as the space-monster advanced. More beams slashed towards him—

And he was gone, leaping through the city like a Brobdingnagian gazelle. Ghidora twisted in time to see him disappear into the concrete jungle of the mostly-intact industrial sector. Howling in frustration, the Space Monster took to the air in search of his wily foe.

* * *

Most of this battle was visible from the police barricade. The men were transfixed, of course, and the officer Yomi had spoken with was feeling a little bad about being short with her over the monster sighting. He shook his head in amazement as the three-headed monster wheeled overhead, "You don't see shit like _that _every day."

"Hey, Honada," another officer said, "The car's still there."

"What?" he looked for himself and observed the little green car still sitting by the roadside. "Damn. I'll go get rid of 'em." Grumbling much as Yomi had on her way to him, Honada trudged over to the car and rapped on its window. "Hey!"

There was no response.

"Hey, open up!" He leaned down to look inside and groaned aloud—the car was empty.

(A/N: King Caesar's only movie appearance was in the original _Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla_. I would recommend you see it… but I can't do so in good conscience.)


	12. The Quest Ends

(A/N: Emile Zola I'm not. I didn't bother to exhaustively research the effects of extreme radiation exposure, so I just sorta wrote for dramatic effect. Osaka fans: fear not. It's not over till the fat lady sings, and Tomo will be glad to tell you that Yomi can't sing to save her life. _Ow!_)

The three soldiers that had been summoned to the firing range were a little nervous. None of them had been told why the third-in-command wanted to see them or why they had to bring their combat gear. All they knew was that they'd been asked to accurately record the addresses of their families so their last paycheck could find them in the event of a brutal evisceration.

It did little to ease their minds when Xoltan swaggered into the room with a great mass of lethal machinery slung over his back. Yanking roughly a third of it off and hefting it over his head, he cried, "Listen up, you primitive screwheads! This is my _boom_ stick!"

There was quite a long pause. "Uh… sir?" one of the 'primitive screwheads' ventured.

"Sorry, just tryin' it out for the Earthmen." Xoltan unslung his weaponry and distributed it; they were three large weapons that quite resembled rocket-launchers and thus weren't like anything the Xians had seen before. They hefted the things uncomfortably and swung them around experimentally. "These boom sticks are actually Proton Anchors, shoulder-mounted anti-Kaiju weaponry. You three have been chosen to head up our big ugly dog-thingy hunt."

"Big ugly…?"

"This guy attacked King Ghidora and slapped him around a little before hiding in the city. We were just going to raze it to find him, but Xolarus vetoed that. Our mark's having a really easy time avoiding Ghidora, but he won't even be looking for little dudes with guns, right? Well, one of these will blow him right in half!" One of the men, who'd been peering down the barrel of his, hastily jerked it away.

Before Xoltan could go on, the door buzzed sharply. "What the hell is that?" he asked irritably. He cuffed the soldier that volunteered, "The door, sir?" and excused himself to answer it.

_Whoosh!_ The door hissed open on… empty corridor? He glanced down. "Xandra…!" But the planned rebuke vanished in his throat when he saw the look on her face. "It's Xond again, isn't it? What did he do to you?"

"It isn't me…" she swallowed. "Y-you know the dreams I was having?"

"Uh… the Guardian and all that?"

"He thinks they're real! He's… he's going down to Earth, t-to Sendai, now, to kill one of Ms. Sakaki's friends because of them!"

Xoltan blinked. "The Queen's…? Why would he…?" But the more he thought about it, the more it made a frightening kind of sense. Of course Xandra's dreams would be influenced by talking to Sakaki, and of course Xond would see in them the justification for blowing someone away! "Well, he's not gonna manage it. Don't worry Xan, I'll take care of it."

He clapped her on the shoulder and marched back to his soldiers. "Change of plans. Xavolon, go back to the barracks-I'm taking your Proton Anchor down personally." The indicated soldier shuffled away, hanging his head. "We'll each get a pair o' regulars down there, so nobody runs alone, got it? There's more than Earth monsters to worry about…"

* * *

And beneath the weak, milky sun substitute that filtered through the astral plane's eternal overcast, the Shobijin conferred. "I rather like him," Lefty commented.

"Don't admire him too much," Righty cautioned.

"Whyever not?"

"Mr. Xoltan isn't much of a hero or philanthropist. He's merely an overly romantic buffoon, propelled to his current rank by blind luck and nepotism, motivated not by a reasoned set of principles but by a bizarre and outmoded chivalry that, for the most part, he lacks the courage to act on. There's no telling that he would have done _anything _useful without our nudging."

"Oh." Lefty considered this. "Well, be that as it may, I still like him."

"Then it's a good thing I'm around."

They meditated for a few minutes/hours/years, neither bothering to measure the meaningless passage of astral time. After what seemed to be a short pause but could have been millennia or just as easily milliseconds, Lefty spoke again. "I'm still frustrated that we can't find a way to save Ayumu."

"It's unfortunate, yes, but the alternative is much worse."

"You know, some other astral beings are taking exception to this whole business. It seems that young Ayumu gets around up here. She spends a lot of time in the realm of Orpheus, I hear, and James Brown likes her, too."

"As I said, it's unfortunate, but none of them can do anything about it either. It would take somebody like…" Suddenly, they both noticed an ovoid shadow falling over them and whirled as one to face the greatest of the Elder Ones! (Well, behind Cthulu.) Even the emissaries of Mothra stood in awe of the creature that now addressed them…

"I wish I were a bird," it said slow, deep voice.

* * *

The girls trooped through Sendai's empty streets, astounded at the near total quiet after the monsters' thunderous battle. Chiyo was moving with a weird little hybrid of a run, a skip and an overly casual walk, giggling madly. "I've never done anything like that before!" she exulted, "That was so much fun!"

"Heh ha! We'll make a delinquent outta Chiyo-suke yet!" Tomo threw an arm over her shoulder and punched her arm. "Next time, let's rob a convenience store together!"

"Um…" The prodigy sobered quickly.

"Okay, why did we just leave my car?" Kagura asked in annoyance, helping a still hobbling Osaka along. "Why are we running _towards_ the giant monsters? Would somebody tell me what the hell is going on?"

"We're savin' the world," Osaka said vaporously.

"I figured out that much!" the athlete snapped. "But why-?" She was interrupted by a deep sound suspiciously like a kettle drum. Before anybody managed to comment on it, it sounded again and they felt a slight tremor through their shoes. A light drizzle picked up as they stood there, an awful suspicion forming in their minds… after all, they _were _right on the coast…

"I'm going to check it out!" Kagura said before anybody else could. She pushed Osaka onto a protesting Tomo and took off at a sprint none of them could match. "Ms. Kagura!" Chiyo called frantically, starting after her. Yomi took a single step to follow, but then turned and held out her arms against the others. "Hold on! Someone has to stay with Osaka!"

"Sorry, guys…" Osaka sighed, cursing the letter opener.

Chiyo jogged a few blocks, coming upon Kagura overlooking the water. The kettle drum thrummed again, louder. "I don't know if we'll see it from here," Kagura commented, then put a hand to the back of her head, chuckling weakly. "Uh, sorry. I just got excited… y'know, I missed out yesterday."

"You didn't miss much," Chiyo comforted as they started back. Just as they turned a street corner though, the drum boomed so loudly that it nearly knocked them over. Chiyo froze as a blast of hot, reeking air rushed behind her, carrying a strong smell like sulfur, baking stone and fish. It was… _breath_.

Another colossal footstep made the pavement shake nauseously, actually cracking apart in places. The thin, high-pitched thread of Chiyo's whimper was lost in the now near-constant rumble. She stood trembling, not daring to turn, wide-eyed and white-faced as the ground shook harder and the leading edge of _something _appeared in the street behind her.

Kagura also stood slack-jawed, but facing this dreadful apparition. After another thunderous noise, the next street was entirely blocked by a wall of rugged, dark gray flesh, a titanic three-toed foot that plunged into the street as if it were snow. The odor was now more agreeable, a sort of barnacle-reptile-seawater-rust-extreme-heat blend that would stick in both girls' memories forever. So would the terrific clamor of the armored plates that ran up the creature's back beating together as he ambled along, looking around Sendai almost as if he were a tourist.

The two of them stood not five hundred meters from the King of the Monsters!

Godzilla roared, and though it smote their ears nearly deaf, Chiyo had to admit that Osaka was right: it _did _in fact sound like someone had taken a contrabass, rubbed it with a glove coated in resin and played the sound backwards. He moved with shocking speed for something so big, striding into the human metropolis with grim purpose.

"Tail," Kagura said.

"Wh-what?"

"Tail!"

Chiyo just stared at her blankly--then yelped as Kagura grabbed her arm and started to run away. And not a moment too soon, for just behind them, Godzilla's tail, swinging casually but still unspeakably powerful, pulverized a whole row of storefronts and nearly brought down the block of buildings next to them.

Suddenly, being in Sendai was an even worse idea. Our unfortunate heroines would be caught in the middle of the most brutal title bout in history!

* * *

"Kaori, hurry up! You're going to lose us!" Yomi called over her shoulder. Kaori glanced up in surprise, noticing the distance that had grown between her and the others; she'd been brooding again, which was a very unhealthy habit in a city minutes from being torn to bite-sized chunks.

The Fellowship rounded a corner ahead of her and entered the home stretch, with only two or three blocks separating them from the boat and the end of their quest. Kaori ran to catch up… and skidded to a halt when she heard a horribly familiar voice yell, "Hold it right there!"

She plastered herself against the wall and peered around the corner, watching what followed in horror. Four men in black suits emerged from cover around her friends, closing in around them swiftly with those strange little pistols held at elbow height. The girls backed together—except Kagura, who yelled "Scatter!" and sprinted straight at one of the spacemen, pushing roughly past him towards freedom.

The lead alien stepped quickly up to Chiyo and pressed his gun to her temple. "Call her back!" he snarled.

"K-K-Kagura!" she shrieked.

The athlete stopped dead in her tracks and turned to see the black suit beckon mockingly, sharp face stretched by a poisonous smile as he poked the snout of his weapon into Chiyo. When she returned, the agents made their captives to spread out a ways and sit on the ground with their hands in plain sight.

"Ha!" he crowed. "It's a good thing I caught you here! The Prince and his consort are just three streets away, and if _they _saw you I wouldn't have any fun!" He glanced up sharply, but the flicker of motion he'd seen around the corner must have been his imagination. "I am Agent Xond, a veteran of infiltrating your primitive world!"

The girls just stared at him with expressions ranging from hostility to terror. In the near distance, Godzilla had stopped and stood watching the horizon, where the distant form of King Ghidora wheeled in its search. The mighty beast seemed to be… cogitating. But surely not!

"What are you going to do with us?" Yomi asked, her voice tightly controlled.

"In spite of what you may have heard, I do not have the stomach for killing little girls," Xond explained. "My rocket will be coming to pick us up shortly. You will all be held on our Mothership until this planet is conquered. Now which of you…? Aha!" He knelt next to Osaka, who was curled miserably around the watermelon-sized egg. "I might have to take that from you. But if you mean to die protecting it, by all means, feel free!"

"Stop picking on her!" Tomo cried, standing.

"Tomo!" Yomi snapped. "Sit down, you idiot!"

"Don't worry!" Tomo replied dismissively, waving a limp hand, "Those aren't even real guns! Wouldja look at 'em? They're like water pistols or-!" _Dew-dew-dew-dew!_ A violently glowing beam stabbed through her side and she blanched, swaying on her feet. "…ow." And without another sound, she collapsed practically right into Yomi's arms.

"What the hell?" Kagura rose to a crouch but halted when three guns were leveled on her. "You-! You shot her!"

"Don't get excited, that was the lowest setting. She's barely singed."

"Yomi, it hurts!" Tomo's voice was uncharacteristically soft and held a genuine note of fear and pain that the others had never heard in it before.

"Shh-shh…" Yomi hugged her, afraid to make a larger move under the aliens' unwavering weapons. "Don't worry…"

"Yes, don't worry," Xond agreed, "Unless you do anything stupid, none of you will be harmed further." He sat cross-legged facing them, making a great show of checking his watch. "So… why don't we talk, eh? All of that staring must be getting boring, and I'm sure you have more questions for the scary invader… and you won't like what happens when _I _get bored."

Chiyo didn't want to test this veiled threat. "Um… w-well… Mr. Xond, I was wondering how it was that we never found your planet."

"Didn't you hear the Prince? It's hidden from your primitive detection by the mass of Jupiter." He paused. "In fact, it's a _dark _world hidden by Jupiter."

"But how does that work? Why does it being dark matter? I mean, wouldn't the Voyager probe have-?"

Xond pulled his gun. "_I SAID IT WAS HIDDEN FROM YOUR PRIMITIVE DETECTION!_" Chiyo covered her head with a small scream; evidently the spy felt this reaction sufficient because he calmed right down and pocketed the weapon again. "Anyone less annoying have a question?"

"I do…" Osaka said. Her manner was so drifty and loose that you would never have guessed that she was being held at gunpoint by a quartet of alien invaders. To Chiyo, she seemed almost fatalistic. "What d'ya call the ground on Planet X?"

"What?"

"We say earth here, right? Y'shovel earth, move earth, an' walk around on God's Green Earth… but what d'you guys say? God's Green Planet X?" The girls all hung their heads, certain that they'd be mowed down.

"…_what?_"

"Maybe you-" Osaka was interrupted by the first six bars of _Poi Poi Peace_ issuing from a tinny speaker. Except for Xond, the invaders clutched their weapons and cast about for the its source nervously. The commander pointed to the still-simpering Tomo and ordered, "Answer it! But I'll be listening."

When she made no move to, Yomi fished the cell-phone from her pocket and answered it. "Hello? …yeah, yeah she is." She placed the phone on the ground and slid it very carefully to Chiyo, who snatched it up nervously and answered in a curiously high-pitched voice. "H-hello?" She nodded. "Y-yes. I… yeah, actually I am. … Wh-what? Oh, no! Are you…? Thank you very much. Yes, thank you. Y-yeah, I love you too. Right… good-bye."

"What was it?" Xond asked sharply.

"He… my father… the…" she petered out and continued in a tone that completely failed to convince _anyone_, even Osaka. "My dog was hit by a car."

"Hmm…" Xond rubbed his chin. "I don't think I quite believe-" Then an alien communicator chimed for attention. "Great space, it never ends!"

After glancing a question to him, one of the agents snapped open his communicator and answered with a curt, "Go ahead." There followed a brief conversation, made much longer by Xond's impatient foot-tapping and angry muttering, before the agent made his report. "It's Team 7, sir. They're having trouble penetrating the Mihama house."

"You're trying to break into my house?" Chiyo cried.

"Did you have to report in Japanese?" Xond sighed, running a hand down his face.

"Sorry, sir." He glanced down at himself. "It's the suit."

"So…" the alien commander whirled and stalked over to kneel next to Chiyo. "You must be Chiyo Mihama, then, am I right? The daughter of Yasuhiro Mihama?"

"Y-yes."

"I want you to call your father on that cell phone and tell him we have you."

Chiyo closed her eyes tightly. "No."

"_What?_"

"No! I'm sorry, but I can't help you twist his--!"

Xond stuck his needle-ray projector to her head. Chiyo flinched, but not nearly as much as before; she was starting to get used to it. "Do it right now or I'll blow your pretty little head off! Ten seconds. Ready? Ten… nine… eight…"

"Chiyo, do what he says!" Yomi hissed. "Don't let him shoot…!"

"Dude, he'll do it!" Kagura added, "He's unstable, man, you can see it in his eyes…"

"Six… five… four…"

"HEY!" Xond jumped a little; his finger tightened momentarily on the trigger, but then he jerked the weapon away from her head and leveled it at the yeller. Xoltan stood at the end of the street behind him, flanked by two men in the Planet X Marine uniforms – a silver jumpsuit and a sleek helmet with antennae, though the Third himself had forgone a helmet. "Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Well, well. If it isn't Xethnex's bitch. What are you doing down here?"

Now, Xond giving a simple explanation would have saved the Xians a lot of grief, but Xoltan wasn't in the mood for explanations at the moment. "You were gonna shoot her, weren't you, you sick bastard! Didn't you know we're not supposed to blast civilians, especially kids?"

"_You _aren't supposed to," Xond corrected coldly. "Intelligence doesn't follow the same rules."

"Well, guess what?" Xoltan said, walking forward with his own gun out. He seemed to be trying to intimidate the other (after all, the spy only stood up to his chest), but if that was so, it certainly wasn't working. "The rules are changing right now. I outrank you."

"Do you think I give a-?" Xond stopped when his ears caught a distant whistling sound. As one, everybody in the street turned and watched as a tiny, brilliantly glowing projectile whipped up from a distant street and struck Godzilla's chest with a clearly audible _thlatch!_ "The Proton Anchor?" Xoltan yelped. "That idiot! He's supposed to-!"

_Boom!_

A candy-red explosion knocked the King of Monsters back a step with a startled roar, clawing at a foe that wasn't there. He looked around in confusion even as the wound on his chest healed before their eyes. What looked like pieces of black rubber fell all around them, and Xoltan was spattered with a light green fluid.

"What the…?" Xond picked a piece of the rubbery stuff up. "What the hell is this?"

"I think…" Chiyo suggested tentatively, "I think it's Godzilla's skin."

"Ah…" Xoltan nodded. "And so that would make _this _stuff…" he looked down at his stained shirt and suddenly screamed. "AAAAHHHHH!" Forgetting all about their confrontation, Xond pointed at him and screamed as well. The Third frantically ripped his shirt off and threw it on the ground, then both men hosed it down with needle rays.

"Scatter!" Kagura howled again, and, more than a bit haphazardly, the girls responded. The street dissolved into a chaos of yelling in different languages and crisscrossing needle rays, though to be honest, none of the aliens were quite sure who they should be shooting and thus didn't manage to hit _anyone_. In the center of this maelstrom, Xoltan and Xond grappled fiercely.

"Traitor!" the spy hissed.

"Asshole!" Xoltan countered.

He was really no match for his opponent, but he might hold the guy long enough for Sakaki's friends to escape. This was his main priority; after all, Xolarus wasn't the _only _one enchanted by their new Queen…

* * *

Yomi found herself running alone, with only the water and the towering form of a confused Godzilla for landmarks. She didn't know which way she was going but didn't dare stop, and thus was thoroughly lost when her panic finally subsided and she coasted to a stop entering a wide thoroughfare.

Just then, she was overcome by a powerful odor. It was one part burnt hair and two parts wet dog (making about seventy wet dogs all told, she estimated.) Yomi turned slowly, dreading what she would see… and her eyes fell on King Ceasar, crouching behind a large bank, peering over it at the distant Space Monster! She let out a large squeak upon seeing him, swiftly covering her mouth.

Ceasar glanced over, and, with a look of good humor in his crazed eyes, lifted one twisted finger to his horrible lips. Yomi was not one to argue.

* * *

Fortunately, Chiyo had thought to entrust the boat's key to Osaka, the one member of their Fellowship that absolutely _had_ to make it out to sea. Even more fortunately, Osaka didn't lose it. Not too long after their confrontation with Xond, the Mihama family's little motorboat skipped out over the waves, moving a little oddly for its inexperienced crew, but as eagerly as ever.

Tomo laughed. "Holy crap, they've got GPS and this little auto-pilot dealie and everything! It must be awesome being rich! Ha haaaa!" She quickly found her way around the boat's console and had it cutting north along the coast (the daughter of a water skiing enthusiast, the Takinator—shockingly—knew what she was doing.) Her only disappointment was the key, as it would've been cool to try out her mad (_i.e._ nonexistent) hotwiring skills.

"What didja do…?" Osaka asked dimly, sprawled in the bench next to her, "…head's spinnin'."

"Oh, that's easy. I floated like a butterfly and stung like a wasp, baby! Everyone thought I was done for, then _pow!_ I saved the day!" Tomo slouched back in the pilot's chair and threw a playful little kick at Osaka's shin. "You're pretty damn heavy, by the way."

"Sorry…"

"Might be the egg, I guess. Ah, well." She absently lifted the corner of her shirt and scratched at the needle-ray wound. Osaka cringed upon seeing a horrible scarlet burn that spread out of sight in both directions… but didn't comment. What Tomo didn't know wouldn't cause her hours of agony, after all.

The wind of their passage cooled an otherwise unseasonably warm afternoon, ruffling Tomo's fine hair wildly as she gazed out to sea, eyes half-lidded. Actually, with a ray gun wound and a long, hard day to take the edge off of her, Tomo was really quite pretty. Osaka considered pointing this out, but then remembered the running gag she'd started earlier and kept her peace. "I'm gonna sleep a bit… wake me up when it's time ta change course, alright?"

"Always sleeping. Man, you're even lazier than Kagura!"

Osaka drifted off without responding, and this time, no extraplanar entity descended on her. After a string of unsettling visitations, it was nice to have a normal dream for once, even if it was a nightmare about a vampiric moth sucking her life away—or was it trying to wrap her in a cocoon? The two images were eerily conflated.

She flailed desperately at its ragged, musty-smelling wings, stumbling over the strangely uneven ground. All at once, though, Osaka's dream-self realized what the creature was. Swallowing her fear, she opened her arms to it and gasped as its proboscis stabbed into her chest…

And then the dream dissolved into a pleasant pastel smear. Now she was seeing Chiyo-chan as a seventeen-year-old, who reminded her of a great big Labrador puppy: towering, lanky, goofy, openly affectionate and almost unbearably cute, though the particular flavor of cute was much different now. And there was Yomi, now genuinely a responsible, respectable adult, strong and smart and professional… but still with a tiny sliver of a childlike sense of fun to her. And Tomo she saw, still every bit as genki as in the present, but with all of that energy tempered and focused. Does that mean she actually got to be a cop?

Though this vision of things to come was beautiful, Osaka had an awful feeling that someone was missing. For the life of her, she just couldn't figure out whom. Let's see: Chiyo, Yomi, Tomo, Sakaki, Kagura, even Kaori were there… so who…? "Osaka! Hey, get up." Her eyes drifted open, and for some reason, tears were running down her temples. "Yo."

Tomo helped her up and then walked to the rail next to the boat's console. "We'll be headed East in 'bout two minutes," she said. "Won't be too far to your island, then."

Osaka nodded silently. She walked up next to her friend, watching the coast as well, then suddenly hugged her from behind. "I love you, Tomo."

"Whoa! Hey, I thought you said you didn't swing that way!"

"Don't miss me," Osaka murmured into her shoulder-blades.

"What? Why would I…?"

"Offhand," the space cadet changed the subject, resting her chin on Tomo's shoulder. "How far would you say it is to shore?"

Tomo blinked uncomfortably. "Maybe half a kilometer. Dunno."

"Couldja swim it?"

Responding instinctively to the challenge, Tomo straightened. "Of course I could! Nothing easier! Why—WAUGHHH!" _Splash!_ "What the hell are you--?" She watched in consternation as the boat wheeled to the East and accelerated. "I woulda been fine!" she screamed after, "A little radiation never hurt anyone!"

Now for that half-kilometer swim…

* * *

An hour later, the boat ran violently aground on the barren shore of Birth Island, skidding across the rock nearly ten meters before it finally slammed into a ridge and was still. "Hehe…" Osaka mumbled, staggering to her feet and regarding the ruined hull, "Sorry, Chiyo-chan… guess I got carried away…"

Osaka hefted the egg, limped out onto shore and surveyed the desolate, rocky landscape about her. So, this was the famed radioactive hellhole, eh? "Ah, it's not so bad…" The letter opener wound was throbbing steadily, making it dreadfully painful even to walk. For a fleeting moment, Osaka regretted not bringing her friend, but as the first ghostly tendrils of nausea slid through her, she knew it was for the best.

Not far away, she espied a shelf of rock that looked almost like an altar… no, not almost. It was perfectly formed! Somehow, miraculously, it had survived the battle between Godzilla and Ghidora, the craters and scorches of which covered the island's whole surface.

"Easy enough," she decided, and started to hobble towards it. Unfortunately, the egg was growing steadily now, getting heavier and heavier. The already meager strength ebbed from her limbs as she shambled forward, cradling the egg against her torso. After a few seconds, she noted entirely without concern that a runnel of blood was flowing from the corner of her mouth.

Suddenly she started to chuckle. Osaka always used to wonder how she would die, but she never imagined that it would be from a combination of extreme radiation poisoning and having her soul sucked out by a Moth goddess. The egg slid sluggishly from between her hands as she faltered. The altar was still five meters away… but it might as well have been five hundred.

The next thing that Osaka noticed was that she was lying on her side and the egg was rolling away from her, growing even faster. That's funny… she didn't remember falling… Before she could investigate the matter further, she coughed violently, spraying the stone with blood.

"Eehh…" she said thickly, staring at the altar with increasingly blurred vision, "Close enough, right?" Osaka was confident that somewhere, somehow, Mothra was slapping an ethereal forehead with a nonexistent hand. The image made her giggle, which was a mistake, because her chest was really starting to hurt.

She curled slowly into a ball, marveling at the fascinating cocktail of tingling, burning, nausea and pain that was filling her poor body. Her mind was already pretty well disengaged, observing impartially as she hacked another spray of blood and her vision clouded horribly. But now, she realized, even her mind was unraveling.

_Oh, great, am I gonna go into the hereafter brain-damaged?_ Osaka wondered disjointedly. Then it occurred to her that in the hereafter, she wouldn't _have_ a brain. This raised all sorts of fascinating metaphysical questions, but Osaka couldn't pursue them because she was dead.


	13. San Daikaiju Chikyu, Saidai No Kessen

(A/N: And this is the phase of most Godzilla movies where the humans are reduced to standing on the sidelines looking stupid while the monsters do their things. I shall do my level best to counter this…)

Xond shoved his opponent away and pulled the extra needle-ray projector from his sock, leveling it at his superior with a feral yell. Showing that perhaps he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, Xoltan just chuckled and threw out his arms. "You're pretty good at waving those things around and scaring little girls, agent! I wonder how you are at- _whooouf!_"

That last came as he was folded around the smaller man's fist, which dug into his gut deeply enough to provoke a round of dry retching as he fell to his knees. The assorted Marines and secret agents clustered together and watched uneasily; they still weren't sure just who the mutineer was. Xoltan's intended witty retort came out as, "Ughhhah!"

"How's that for an answer?" Xond smirked. He turned swiftly and saw Tomo just disappearing around a corner with a confused Osaka in tow. He took a single running step towards them. "After th-!"

Unfortunately for him, he missed the Third's hand shooting up behind him and grabbing his hair, though it was impossible to miss the knee slamming into his Xian kidney equivalent. He turned and tried to bring his weapon to bear, but Xoltan caught his wrist and they were back to grappling again.

"That's it!" Xond finally snarled, letting the projector drop, "You're _done_!" and then he broke Xoltan's nose on his forehead. Riding a wicked adrenaline rush, the larger man lunged for his throat and shoved him against the wall, but in response, Xond pulled himself up on the arm and wrapped his legs around his foe's neck. This standoff dragged on as their men watched.

"My legs… are stronger… than your hand…!" Xond hissed triumphantly.

Xoltan nodded. Then, with a harsh scraping sound, the agent was hauled off of the wall and slammed to the pavement. Not letting up, his superior soccer-ball kicked him in the groin, which hurts no matter _what _planet you're from. Even as his head was cracking on the wall, Xond tried to regain the initiative… that is, until they heard the roar of a motorboat starting in the near distance. "I hope you know what you cost us," he growled, finally admitting defeat.

Xoltan snapped his fingers and pointed to one of the Marines, who relinquished his shirt. "I think I can live with myself." He turned away and took one step before the agent's foot lashed up into _his_ groin.

* * *

"No, it is _not _corporate pride talking," Mr. Mihama grated. He was still on his rocking chair, watching the stand of trees warily. One arm was leaning on a table the butler had set for him, holding a cell-phone to his ear; the other was holding the shotgun unerringly on the trees. "G-Force can handle the situation better than anything the Americans can bring to bear. Er, hold on…"

_BLAOW!_ "Son of a--!"

Mihama grinned and started to reload. He enjoyed keeping the infiltrators on their toes. "Huh? Experience?" He shifted his grip on the phone. "The Americans don't have any experience with… what? With respect, the creature that attacked New York in 1998 is nothing compared to Godzilla. Well… very well, Mr. Prime Minister. I just wanted to be sure you knew the implications of what you've ordered. Yes. Good-bye."

"Your luncheon, sir," Alphonse announced, emerging from the house and setting out a bottle of wine, a plate of vegetables and a steak. It was more dinner fare, and the wine was completely wrong for the entrée, but Mihama was feeling a little cheeky that day. "Thank you. Now, Alphonse, I'm going to give this steak the attention it deserves. Can I trust you to hold down the fort?"

"Very good, sir." Alphonse accepted the shotgun.

The infiltrators watched this development with no small amount of glee. "How much you want to bet that old codger can't shoot for beans?" the first said. "Let's go in one, two-!" _BLAOW!_ A squirrel on a branch beneath them vanished in a puff of vaporized blood. "N-never mind."

* * *

"Slow down, Chiyo-chan! What about the Americans?" Kagura asked, taking the girl's shoulders. The two had run quite a ways, finally coming to rest in the lee of a shopping mall with no Xians in sight. "It's okay!"

"No it isn't!" Chiyo cried, "Don't you understand? We don't know where the others are and we have no way to find them! They don't know!"

Kagura grabbed a handful of her bangs. "What don't they know?"

The prodigy stopped and calmed herself visibly. After swallowing a few times, she finally continued, "That call was my father… he had a burst of intuition and thought we might be here after the boat. Didn't know why. But… but he told me… an American fleet is coming! They're going to bombard the city with Frontier missiles, and if that fails… if-if it fails…"

"Yeah?"

"_They're going to use a hydrogen bomb!_"

"A hydro… um…" Kagura tried to process this. "Could that… possibly be…"

"_Yes! _It is _very, very _bad!" Chiyo sat down on a bench and covered her face. "I couldn't let the Xians know, b-but now our friends are stuck here! …Ms. Kagura?" The other glanced down at her. "If you don't mind, I think I'm going to cry for a bit."

* * *

"What a miserable waste," Xolarus said sadly, "Why couldn't they just surrender?"

He and Sakaki stood more-or-less alone in the middle of a decimated street. There were reliable reports that a platoon of the Earth laser tanks had been arranged here, but it would have been impossible to tell. The jagged scar of a gravity beam tore up the middle of the street, punctuated along its length by masses of char and explosive craters. There wasn't an unbroken window in any direction for a block at least.

The Prince also wore the Marine uniform, complete with the helmet, and adding his customary golden cape. Upon first seeing him, Sakaki had commented that he looked "different" with the helmet. "How so?" he had asked. "More commanding? Dashing?" After a pause just long enough to show that she was lying, she had replied, "Um, sure."

But concerning the state of Sendai, "H… horrible…" was all Sakaki managed. She'd wanted desperately to return to Earth, but not like this!

"It is," Xolarus agreed soberly. "But… in the end I have to believe it's worthwhile. This world will be ours even if this must be the fate of every city."

"No…"

"Sakaki?" the Prince looked to her. She was shrinking away from him, shaking her head. "You can't… you can't _mean _that…" He mentally kicked himself for being so careless. "No, Sakaki," he comforted, holding out a hand that she pointedly ignored, "It won't come to that. Trust me, I won't let- _uh!_"

"_GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU CREEP!_" The Prince wheeled away, clutching a hand to his freshly-cracked helmet. Sakaki stepped back in shock, raising her own hands, but whether it was to aid him, shield herself or just out of reflex was unclear. Kaori stepped between them, brandishing a two-by-four with a nail through it. "_I won't let you hurt her!_"

"Goddamn!" Xolarus spat, "What the… why the _hell_ did you just…? A goddamn nail and everything! Argh! Sakaki, do you know this girl?"

"Yes," she answered, not trusting herself to say more.

"Well… _ahh…_" he removed his helmet and rubbed his head. "I'm going to walk this off, and when I get back, you'd _better_ have an explanation ready for me!" With a melodramatic swirl of golden cape, he stalked away. An awkward pause ensued.

"Who is that?" Kaori asked, a little giddy.

"Prince Xolarus," Sakaki replied, looking after him. "We're going to marry." Kaori whirled, eyes growing to the size of dinner plates. "Er, not by choice. I have to, or else…"

"I'll protect you!" Kaori volunteered wildly.

"You can't," Sakaki said flatly. When she saw the effect her words and tone had, she awkwardly went back on herself. "Um, sorry."

"But… but why do you…?" Kaori looked at the ground. "No. Well… you… you deserve a prince, anyway." Sakaki was just about to ask what she meant when they were rudely interrupted.

"I'm back!" Xolarus strode up to them and crossed his arms, kicking the two-by four skittering across the street away from them. "A club! Primitive piece of…! So, do we have an explanation?"

"Well," Sakaki started hesitantly, "Uh… she…"

"I love her!" Kaori snapped. Everybody else (even a random soldier that was happening by) stopped and stared at her in surprise. "You love her?" Xolarus asked blankly. "Isn't that a little… um… deviant?"

Kaori laughed. She'd just done what she never thought she could, and now a blue guy from outer space was suggesting that she was weird! "I don't know what it is! I don't know if it's just a childish crush, if I'm some kind of freak or what, but I do! I love her! And you know what else? I'm not scared of you!"

"She's insane!" Xolarus exclaimed, almost laughing himself. Sakaki couldn't disagree; she was still in shock. Love! So _that _explained… everything. "Well, you know, you just attacked royalty. That's punishable by d…" the Prince met Sakaki's entreating eyes and sighed resignedly, "Servitude. Yes, servitude. We'll indenture you. Um… Sakaki, I guess you could use another attendant, huh?"

Before she could answer, his communicator chimed and he snapped it open instantly. "I'm busy! What is it?"

"Sir!" an appropriately panicked underling cried, "The Earth monster, the big one, is moving again! He's going to engage Ghidora!"

Xolarus nodded tightly. "Battle Plan Four." The communicator snapped shut and he looked between the Earth girls gravely. "We'd better not stay on the surface. Follow me… and no more blunt objects, _please_."

They set out, only pausing so that Sakaki could take her friend by the shoulder and help her along; Kaori seemed to be in shock. "At…attendant?"

* * *

Godzilla's first move was to raid Sendai's nuclear power plant. Strangely intent, he plunged through the complex, dug his claws into the reactor and squinted against the resultant cloud of superheated steam. SDF observers initially freaked out, but their Geiger counters didn't even twitch; the monster was absorbing radiation as fast as it was released!

A few inquiring minds wondered why he hadn't simply absorbed the radiation of Birth Island. ("Maybe it's important that Birth Island stay radioactive for some reason?" a young grad student wondered aloud, but the scientists he worked under just looked at him like he was stupid.) Other inquiring minds wondered how Godzilla absorbed radiation at all, but that was a mystery that would only be solved when the Monster King was stuffed and mounted, a happy day that G-Force worked toward diligently.

Ghidora took to the air, rising to a positively dizzying height before mounting his assault. Godzilla was just slurping up the last dregs of Sendai's reactor when gravity beams started stabbing at him from on high. He staggered back with an aggrieved roar, searching the sky for his tormentor.

Jagged beams lashed up and down his body, driving him back and back. The Keeper was certain that this strategy would work; how could a dumb brute like Godzilla connect these awful beams with what appeared to be a tiny golden kite fluttering in the distance?

And for a second or two, Godzilla did, in fact, seem to be confused. But then, eyes narrowing, he tilted his head back and noted the Space Monster in the distance. Even as Ghidora's attacks tore at him, he opened his mouth and stared angrily, eyes calculating…

And the mighty King Ghidora was struck from the air.

He twisted violently at the last second, taking the atomic ray on the broad surface of one shining wing. Ghidora's triple-shriek filled with frustration as he spiraled towards the ground, wings folded. In a move that would have done seabirds everywhere proud, he spread his wings at the last moment, his claws striking a long trail of sparks across the street as he swooped right into Godzilla.

The monsters went down together, Godzilla's bellow drowning out the crash of their fall. Ghidora stood athwart the Monster King, striking furiously with all three heads, and they became a tangle of striking limbs and flashing blades. Judging by the thrashing of Godzilla's tail, it seemed that he was getting the worst of it.

At this point in the engagement, a strange creature rose silently from the ocean. It was an enormous, darkly armored caterpillar… and profoundly, astonishingly ugly. Its beady blue eyes glowed brightly for the shadows of deep sockets and a many-toothed mouth worked steadily between them, just beneath a strange sort of crest. Earth's guardian had arrived!

One of Ghidora's heads whipped around and blew it right back into the water with a single gravity beam. Nobody gave it a second thought.

But as this head was starting to turn back, a clod of pavement struck its eyes, bursting like a ninja's pepper ball. King Caesar leapt from his cover behind the bank, hurling another powdery projectile into the head that turned to deal with him. Before he could even step out of over Godzilla, the Space Monster found a furious living Shisa bulling in to his flank.

Ghidora's sinuous body bent around the smaller monster as he took an awkward step sideways. Big, knobby fists were pounding into his middle and chest—Caesar was inside of his reach and milking it for all it was worth. Finally, one of the heads grabbed Caesar by the back of his neck and flung him back, but the two gravity beams the Space Monster sent after him went wide of their mark.

Godzilla regained his feet ferociously and struck his larger foe with his muscular tail, unaware of the swath of wreckage his attack left. Another punishing tail strike and Ghidora turned all three gravity beams on him point blank—but he was inside the bubble of Caesar's interference and the beams peeled away like an opening flower.

To speak of Ceasar, he had grabbed hold of one of Ghidora's tails and seemed to be trying to put it in some kind of hold; it would have been comical if the stakes of this battle weren't so dire. Ghidora glanced back at him in seeming panic, and then forward at Godzilla, who was readying his atomic ray.

And then the Space Monster employed one of his favorite tactics. He sprang into the air just as Godzilla's spines lit with blue energy, leaving King Caesar grasping at thin air when the tail twisted from his grip. The howling blue ray flashed through the space Ghidora had just occupied, bearing down on the small defender…

But instead of being incinerated, the shaggy beast took a stance like a sumo wrestler, head thrust forward, and Godzilla's attack twisted and funneled down into his orange eye. For endless seconds he sucked down the blisteringtorrent and history would never know that the main reason his head wasn't exploding like a melon stuffed with firecrackers was the auspicious placement that Kazuki Izumi had given his statue.

Once it was over, Godzilla stared at him, completely baffled. He almost looked like he was considering belching another ray to see what would happen. Ghidora was even more surprised, and not a little worried, for he knew what happened when Caesar absorbed—

_BRAMMMMMM!_ (or thereabouts)

The amplified beam that issued from Caesar's other eye was red. No, it wasn't just red, it was _RED!_ It was an impossible, bloody hue that temporarily turned the universe into a sheet of crimson. There was not a single observer of this battle that wouldn't be seeing green every time they blinked for hours after.

It speared up and impaled the Space Monster's chest, continuing unhindered into the firmament. Ghidora was more than hindered. He flopped to the ground, landing drunkenly on his feet, wound gushing black, stringy fluid onto the ruined street. Godzilla didn't give him a moments mercy, tearing into him with tooth and claw, battering him viciously and driving him almost to the water before hosing him down with yet another atomic ray.

The Monster King then did something very strange. He stood over the fallen monster and spread his arms out, thrusting his barrel chest out and roaring as if to say, "I'm from the streets, _bitch!_" For his part, Caesar sat down, loosing an awful bray that could only be laughter, though he didn't have much to laugh about; his eyes were in blank white ruin, surrounded by a grotesque raccoon's mask of tears and retinal fluid.

Ghidora's center head spewed another gush of brackish blood and he was still.

* * *

"Damn!" the Keeper barked, hitting his console. "Damn it all to hell!"

Xandra stood at his elbow, silently watching. She found the brutality of the last few minutes very upsetting, but somehow felt she owed it to Earth to subject herself to it. This was the course her people were taking, and she wouldn't turn away. However, as she stood there, an eerie feeling swept over her. "It's happened," she said softly.

Her brother looked at her impatiently. "I'll say it happened! Any other brilliant insights?" But when he met her dark, glimmering eyes, he knew that something was wrong. He turned back to the controls like a man in a trance.

"Keeper, report!" Xolarus's voice issued from the grille next to his console. So he was still down on Earth? That was bad news. "What's going on?"

"I've lost the signal from the control device," he said dully.

"So Ghidora's dead?"

"No." The Keeper took a faint, perverse pleasure in delivering the news. "Worse."

* * *

After that, everything happened so fast that not even the Xians were able to piece it together afterward. Godzilla was just starting to lumber towards the sea when that familiar tri-toned shriek rang out--but it was wrong. It was a trumpeting sound now, no longer raspy and gritty. Ghidora's eyes were windows into a terrible, hellish furnace.

Before Godzilla could even turn, he was stitched by red-wreathed gravity beams and thrown to the ground with a roar that was more of a scream. He tried to rise but the Space Monster kept after him, hammering him with the dreadful red-and-gold energy until he stopped moving.

With one wing-aided leap, Ghidora crashed down behind King Caesar. The blinded monster whirled, expertly winging a chunk of the street towards his crazed foe—but Ghidora scythed it from the air with his beams. Caesar leapt towards him, was snatched from the air and slammed into the crater he'd made. It was promptly filled with infernal lightning and shredding teeth as Ghidora attacked with astonishing speed. When this assault let up, Caesar reached weakly out of his blackened pit… then Ghidora's great foot slammed down, ending his guardianship of the Izumi family forever.

Satisfied, the Space Demon took to the air once more and the destruction of Sendai began in earnest.

* * *

However, Sendai is a pretty big place, and this new, enraged Ghidora wasn't very methodical. By the time the sun had started to set, his campaign to turn it into a blasted desert still had some ways to go, and those few unfortunates still trapped in Sendai had a chance, however slender, to escape.

Well, most of them did.

Chiyo lay on a waterside street where she had fallen in the last moments of the monsters' engagement, still tugging futilely at her leg, which was pinned under a great clod of rubble. She had lucked out in that it wasn't actually crushing her leg, but that wouldn't matter much when Frontier missiles started raining from the sky.

"Ms. Kagura…" she said desperately. "Why are you still here? You should go!"

"And leave you?" the athlete asked. She gave a small grunt as she pushed at the chunk of concrete, but it didn't budge. "Forget it!"

"But…!"

"We've been over this," Kagura said patiently, and sat down next to her. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I just ditched you here."

"But you won't be able to live at all if you don't!"

"Well, we'll see."

Chiyo stewed for a moment, fear giving way to anger. "Kagura!" she suddenly exploded, "Dammit! Get out of here while… uh…" the prodigy trailed off, looking abashed at her lapse. "S…sorry."

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Kagura asked, raising an eyebrow. Evidently, she had no concept of the pot calling the kettle black. "Y'know, I have this feeling that things will work out." She took the younger girl's hand. "Listen, I'm going to take a little run around and look for the others again, all right? I'll be back in just a little bit, okay?"

"Be careful," Chiyo implored, "He's coming closer…"

"Aah, the way he's been going, it'll take him _forever_ to get here." Maybe not forever, but the rational part of Chiyo had to agree that the way Ghidora was going back and forth over the same ground until nothing was left but grit (according to her friend's report, anyway), she wouldn't have to worry about him for quite a while.

As Kagura started away, though, Chiyo took hold of her pantleg. "Ms. Kagura, look!"

As the Eastern horizon darkened, pinpoints of light were starting to stand out over the waves. The moon peeked through a hole in the overcast, and Kagura realized what they were. The running lights of a flotilla of ships. The Americans!

"Huh," Kagura said, "Sure are a lot of them."

"It won't be long now," Chiyo commented, chuckling a little.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, that wasn't mirth, I'm just uncomfortable. It is a strange feeling, isn't it? That you might be suddenly vaporized without ever knowing what happened?"

"Well, jeez, Ms. Sunshine…" Kagura started sarcastically.

The sky vanished. With an absurdly faint rushing sound, a colossal shape rose from the water, the slow beat of its wings sending a gentle wind over the two girls. Both were completely silent as the apparition passed overhead, drinking in every detail of the strange and wonderful (or was that terrible?) creature.

It was _not _a giant moth. Its sleek, furry body took on that general shape, but it was much more elegant and streamlined. Its long head came to a sharp point at the snout, dominated by two great, sapphire compound eyes and a pair of gently curling antennae that almost looked like the eyebrows of an Asian dragon.

And its wings? If it were to stand still for them, Chiyo could easily imagine spending hours staring into the bizarre patterns coating them in purples, blues and faint bands of red, growing increasingly agitated as the image her brain would be grasping for refused to coalesce.

Just as it reached the shore, the moon emerged again, and another pattern of sparkling silver and blue lines overlaid it. It was stunningly beautiful, but also not a little disturbing. Before they could see much more, it was gone, leaving a wake of cool, sweet-smelling air.

"Wh… what the hell was that?" Kagura asked.

"Offhand?" Chiyo replied, spirits rising, "I'd say it's Ms. Osaka's baby."

(A/N: If the whole "absorbing radiation" thing bothers you, you're probably thinking too much. But if it makes you feel better, you can replace every instance of "radiation" with "sake," if it doesn't bother you that the scientists need a Geiger counter to find alcohol, then.)


	14. Versus

(A/N: Here's the _real _humans-standing-by-stupidly chapter. Fortunately, it will be the last such chapter… but stay tuned for the next one, please.)

The Guardian of Earth swept over the ruins of Sendai, so huge and yet so quiet that it didn't seem that it could be real. He (for, in spite of his delicacy and grace, the creature was indisputably male) lit atop the remains of Sendai Castle and watched the rampant Space Demon with benign curiosity.

In terms of size, the new arrival was nowhere near his opponent; his wingspread was about the same as Godzilla's height and accounted for most of his body. Unlike the other kaiju, he was mute, issuing no shriek, bellow, chirp or bray, but simply sitting silently and observing Ghidora at work.

Among those watching, the reactions were varied. For instance, aboard the flagship of the US Fleet, the admiral lowered a pair of binoculars to his chest, wearing a strange half-smile. "Sir!" one of his officers called, "The Frontier missiles are ready! … Sir?"

Near Xolarus's grounded rocket, the technicians stopped their feverish work and stared skyward stupidly. The Prince recovered almost instantly but didn't berate them, instead turning to a communications operator and snapping, "Get me Xoltan!"

"What _is _that?" Kaori asked fearfully, pressing close to Sakaki. The towering girl didn't answer, but still managed to beam reassurance to her. After a few more seconds of stunned silence, though, the new attendant suddenly cocked her head to the side. "I hear something," she said uncertainly, "A voice. Do you hear?"

"Mm." Sakaki nodded and then, without consulting anyone, started in the direction Kaori indicated. Four or five of the Marines that had just been loitering about nervously abruptly sprang to life and followed; either Sakaki was so concerned that she'd forgotten about them or she was getting used to this whole "Queen" thing. Kaori didn't know how to feel about that last possibility.

Elsewhere in the city, the Guardian's passage had only necessitated a brief pause in Xond's kicking of the lump on the street before him. As he continued, though, a communicator chimed. He snapped his open in aggravation… but the tone continued. Smiling slightly, he squatted down next to the lump and said, "It's for you, _sir._"

Even in the astral plane, this strange being aroused confusion. "It's neither Mothra nor a perversion of her," the right Shobijin said, "I'm glad we don't have another Battra on our hands, but what… what is this?"

"I think I understand," Lefty said. "It's a… a _refinement_. This is the creature that Battra should have been. Mothra is the embodiment of the joy of life, yes? Well… what we have here is the embodiment of that which the joy of life cannot exist without. I don't know what you'd call it… melancholia?"

Behind them, the mighty Elder One glowed approvingly.

* * *

At least one person in the doomed city didn't have time for Mothra gazing, however. Kagura raced down a street at an easy pace (for her), searching for any sign of her missing friends. She carefully logged every turn she took, mentally counting down to when she'd turn back and find Chiyo again.

Poor little thing! Kagura found, to her complete amazement, that she felt very little fear at the prospect of being atomized, but it was intolerable that the same fate should befall Chiyo-chan. Were she to analyze herself more closely, the athlete might have figured out that her nonchalance was just a defense mechanism, but Kagura was never one for navel-gazing.

Just when she had given up on finding anyone, she skidded to a halt and gave a cry of disbelief and joy. "Oi! Tomo! Tomo! Over here!" The Takinator had been trudging along, drenched to the bone and miserable, but as soon as she caught sight of Kagura, they snapped together and hugged furiously, pounding each other on the back.

"Kagura! Ha haa! How ya been, ya old meathead?"

"Better than you, looks like!" Though they'd only parted ways a few hours before, it felt like it'd been years. "Last I saw, you were runnin' off dragging Osaka! She with you too?"

Tomo laughed. "The little dork pushed me off the boat!"

"Wow, what was she thinking?"

Without the slightest drop in her manic joy, Tomo cried, "I just don't know anymore!" After they shared a slightly uneasy laugh (what _had_ been going through Osaka's head?), Kagura sobered and said, "Listen. Chiyo's stuck under some rubble back that way. I can't move it on my own."

"Well you're both in luck that you found the strongest girl in the High School, then!" Tomo flexed her scrawny arm. "Check it out!"

"Umm… I think I'm a _little _stronger—_ow!_"

"Hyaa!"

Kagura took a step back, clutching her nose. "Hell, no reason to attack me! Okay, c'mon, we don't have much time."

"Why not?"

Rather than explain, the athlete took off at her "easy" pace, finding to her annoyance that she had to slow a little so Tomo could keep up. The disruption in her routine caused Kagura to miss a turn, which turned out to be very fortuitous, for they came across the strewn debris of a bank and among them…

"Yomi?" Tomo yelped.

The Bespectacled One stood stock-still, arms at her sides, face gray with shock. Less than five meters from her, one of the late Caesar's great pawprints crushed into the pavement. Two jagged gravity-beam scars converged about seven meters away on the other side; the very edges of their zones of desolation brushed her shoes. The bank had crumbled into the street, surrounding her with huge chunks of rubble. From the looks of things, she'd been almost killed at least four times since they had last seen each other.

"Hey, Yomi?" Kagura asked, snapping her fingers in the taller girl's face. "Hey, what's wrong with you?"

"It was the sort of experience…" she responded dully, "That can drive one insane."

"Insane?" Tomo yelled, jumping onto her back and hooking her legs around Yomi's waist. "You? Ha! You're the most boring person I know!" Yomi was instantly back to normal, whirling in an effort to dislodge her best friend. "Doofus! Get offa me!"

Kagura could hardly believe her luck. At this rate, the whole group would be together in minutes! Perhaps Osaka would fall from the sky next. Reigning in her relieved laughter, she beckoned both of them onward. "We have to help Chiyo-chan, c'mon!"

The three of them ran together, their camaraderie forming a bubble against the distant shriek and thunder of Ghidora's renovation. Their high came to an instant, crashing end, though, when a harsh voice yelled at them in X-lish. Two silver-suited, helmeted men stood guarding Chiyo's street with needle-ray carbines, and one was gesturing to them.

"Does he want us to…?" Kagura waffled for a moment.

"Yeah, no reason to get shot," Yomi said, putting her hands behind her head and moving towards them. The spokesman threw his hands down and said something else, his meaning clear: _put your hands down, stupid! We're not arresting you!_

Slightly confused, the three continued through, escorted by the guards, until they came at last to the street where Kagura's search had started. There they came upon the last and greatest shock of the search.

"Holy shit!" Kagura exclaimed, forgetting that she kissed her mother with that mouth, too. "Wouldja look at this!"

The artificial boulder that had trapped Chiyo was shifted aside, the prybar still sticking out of under it and the blue-skinned crew that had worked that simple machine sitting around and sweating. At least eight Marines stood guard around the whole area; the reason for their presence became obvious as Kagura's eyes fell on the alien Prince, standing impressively with nothing to do, golden cloak flapping in the wind.

Her gaze traveled down to another Xian who crouched next to a shaky Chiyo, listening to her speak and occasionally nodding. The prodigy was wrapped in another golden cape, though where it had come from—Kagura's eyes snapped up from Chiyo to see the large dark shape behind her. It was… it was Sakaki! She sat with her arms around the tiny girl, her expression characteristically grave. And behind her…

"Where did _you _come from?" Kaori asked incredulously. And then all at once the Xian translator was shoved aside and the girls clustered together, babbling excitedly. None of them could believe it! What were the odds that they would find each other in this maelstrom?

Meanwhile, in the astral plane: "Oh, well played, Elder One!" Lefty congratulated.

"That was nothing," the flattened cat said proudly. "You should see when I screw with their dreams!"

* * *

What shall we call the Guardian? He certainly wasn't Battra, and Dark Mothra would imply that he was female. Osakthra is almost perfect, but unfortunately, I didn't come up with that one. Thus, the creature shall henceforth be known as "Gathra," a combination of _Ga_ (Japanese for Moth), Mothra and "Goth," because he resembled nothing so much as a gothic Mothra. And I just think it's fun.

Whatever the name, Ghidora didn't even notice his bizarre foe until less than forty meters separated them. He coiled wildly about, his view filling with Gathra's dramatic wings for an instant before _foof!_, a fine powder burst from the big bug's wings and billowed around him, instantly filling all three sets of nostrils.

Ghidora's coordination was completely shot. His wings started beating out of time and his heads writhed confusedly, so before long he plummeted into the sea of black grit that had once been Sendai's industrial sector. There he staggered drunkenly to his feet and cast about desperately for something to eat—it seems the fearsome Space Demon had come down with a serious case of the munchies.

Next, Gathra glided over to the fallen Monster King. After a few seconds of determined wing-buffeting failed to stir Godzilla, Earth's Guardian grabbed hold of his tail and started dragging him through a row of buildings. _That _got results.

Now that Sendai was home to _two _thrashing, confused, gigantic monsters, the Guardian drifted higher and took some time to examine his handiwork, making no effort to press his advantage over Ghidora. If he was planning to actually save the world, he was sure being leisurely about it.

He was like his mother in that.

* * *

Far beneath him, though, two tiny figures were being a little more proactive. Xond and Xoltan stumbled through the darkened streets, somehow supporting each other and the weight of the Proton Anchor across both sets of shoulders.

"That way!" Xoltan grunted.

"Don't you have ears? That way!" Xond snarled back.

"The sound bounces around, stupid! These are tall buildings!"

"I'm telling you--!" Then Ghidora ended their debate by crashing down a few hundred meters away and throwing a frantic look around, obviously seeing something everybody else was missing. Two of his heads started belching red-wreathed gravity beams at targets that weren't there.

As amusing as his inebriated state might have been, he was still a terrifying sight to behold. Such a massive creature moving so violently, shrieking so, spraying those horrible beams about… and those _eyes_… Xoltan knew why he was the Space Demon now. Such a creature could only have come from Hell.

"Help me aim it," Xoltan gritted, painfully lowering himself and mounting the weapon on his arm. Xond stood behind him and adjusted its mouth. It was supposed to be a lightweight, one-man weapon, but neither was in a condition to use it. There was no time to fuss too much; the monster was already moving on. And so, with a muttered prayer, the Third fired.

_P-toonk!_

Their target, of course, was the still-gaping wound on Ghidora's chest. And, with the agent's eagle eye behind it, the projectile arrowed straight up into it, vanishing into the brittle scab without a sound. There was a pause, and then…

It was raining black Ghidora blood. The Anchor blew his wound even wider, setting the monster reeling back, but he was very clearly not done yet. Completely forgetting his momentary high as a waterfall of oozing, stringy blood ran down his torso, Ghidora started spewing ravening beams all over the ground before him. The evil energy poured from his chest as well, spreading out from him in a crimson cloud.

The two Xians had hit the deck, crunching up for dear life. Xoltan shouted to make himself heard over the din of Ghidora's assault. "Xond? I love you, man!"

* * *

Godzilla rose. He was covered from head to toe in white burns, smoking, battered, unsteady… but most importantly very, very pissed. Oddly, a dim nimbus of dark blue surrounded him as he closed in behind the distracted space dragon and bulldozed into him.

Ghidora howled and used his twin tails to shove the Earth monster away. More gravity beams followed Godzilla… but when they struck the nimbus, Ghidora's hellish red light was repelled, leaving only the plain vanilla beams to strike and smolder on his impervious flesh. Godzilla responded in kind, and _his _beam struck much more painfully.

Seeing that he would lose the ranged contest, Ghidora struck with his teeth, raising gouts and sprays of light-green blood. This tactic proved even less successful, however, when Godzilla started trying to grab for his sucking chest wound. Such things are usually a liability in hand-to-hand (or head) fighting.

It was that strange blue nimbus, Ghidora's primitive mind realized; this was why the puny Earth monster could stand against him. But how could he deal with it? It was then that he noticed Gathra atop Sendai Castle in the distance. Of course! It was clear now where that energy was coming from…

And what to do about it.

Ghidora sprang over Godzilla's head, clubbing him in passing with his talons and then both tails. Gravity beams slashed out over the castle, making Earth's Guardian softly take flight and spiral skyward. Ghidora tore after him angrily, banking to the side to avoid another atomic ray from below.

More of the happy dust drifted down, but it did absolutely nothing to slow the Space Juggernaut's advance. Instead of using his beams, it seemed that the invader wanted the visceral pleasure of tearing this delicate creature apart. And for a few moments, it looked like nothing would prevent him from getting it.

_Voip!_ An astral blade dug into the joint of his wing, making him falter in the air and whip by beneath Gathra. Another dug along his back as he went, but the wounds quickly healed. Ghidora turned and hocked a few beams, which the moth easily evaded. They hovered a kilometer above the city, faking left, then right, then left again…

Ghidora plunged ahead once more! _Voip! Voip! Voip!_ Astral blades raked across his faces and back and wings, but they proved to be just as effective as the happy dust. Shrieking triumphantly, Ghidora grabbed the Guardian's wings in two of his sets of teeth and brought his taloned feet up to tear into him…

* * *

"So that's how it is, then…" Xandra muttered, whisking through the Great Saucer's corridors. Crewmen rushed this way and that, none taking notice of the girl and her dragon in spite of the beast's uneasy warbling. It could feel the tension in her shoulders and the ship's crazed atmosphere, and was set to take flight any second. "It was all true. The little magical women are real, my sister is real, and the Space Demon is down there out to destroy all life."

She slipped into a lift before the doors closed, hitting the Hold level with a shaking finger. As she stood there, awkwardly sharing the tiny disc with four burly soldier-types, the dragon started nipping at one of their ears. Brushing off her panicked apology, he disembarked with his fellows and they jogged off in formation. "Now what do they think _they're_ doing to help?" she asked the air.

Finally, Xandra came to the now-empty hold and plunged unhesitatingly into its cool darkness. She would need a place where nobody would disturb her, and this was as good as any. The Xian girl rushed to the center of the great room and sat down cross-legged, closing her eyes. "Do you still want my help? You've taken my Earth sister, Mothra… will you need Auntie Xan, too?"

She was expecting it, but a chill still shot through her when an affirmative drifted into her mind from… from _elsewhere_. Decision time, then. And after seeing the Space Demon in action, there was no alternative. "Okay, I'll help." Almost instantly, though, she was made to change her mind. What was--?

Xan clutched at her chest as if trying to stop something from leaving, and slowly sank to the deck. "P-please!" she gasped. "I… I don't want to d…" And then, except for slow, shallow breathing, she was still. After a few seconds, the dragon nibbled at her ear uncertainly, but there was no response.

* * *

The change in Gathra was immediately evident. In the last few, molasses seconds as Ghidora's claws flashed towards his underside, the bug was shot through with faint light. The silvery pattern visible in his wings from the moonlight was joined by another pattern, this one golden. Now there was no doubt; staring at those wings for too long _would _drive one mad.

Ghidora didn't notice. He was still in mid-triumphant shriek when…

_VOIP!_

All was silent. Both hung almost still in the air for an interminable moment as the astral blade's trail faded from the air. Then, still in eerie silence, Ghidora's middle head slid off and fell to the city far below. The Space Monster started to fall after, but Gathra wasn't done with him yet.

_VOIP!_ A wing snapped free and was borne away by the wind.

_VOIP! _Diagonally through his knee and tail, severing both.

And then, with a thunderous crash that seemingly shook all of Honshu, Ghidora hit the ground. All might not have been silent after that, but it sure seemed that way to those present. The only one not reeling from this colossal sound was Godzilla, who wandered over to his foe's massive corpse and nudged it with a foot, giving a disappointed grunt when it didn't move.

Activity returned to the Xian camp as slowly as their hearing did, until Xolarus finally shook himself off and started yelling at his men to get back to work. His second thought was to go to Sakaki, but she was still surrounded by her friends, who, he could see, were supporting her much better than he ever could.

The first of the girls to speak, naturally, was Tomo. "Oh my God…" she said, "That was so… so…" Without looking, Yomi clapped a hand over her mouth. Chiyo started to try and say something, but her voice gave out. All they could do is watch as Godzilla started to lumber back to the ocean, actually passing fairly close to them.

But through the mighty kettle-drum of his walking, Sakaki happened to notice a much higher, softer, faster sound. A man's boots beating on the pavement. She turned just in time to see the third Proton Anchor bearer skid to a halt in their midst and fire it up into the Monster King. "You-?" was all she managed.

"Yess! I got him!" the soldier yelled, pumping his fists. "Woo-hoo! I'm gonna be a Captain for sure!" His celebration ended when Godzilla's head turned and looked squarely at him. "…uh!"

The monster's dorsal spines burst into blue flame. Sakaki noted coldly that there would be about a tenth of a second before they were all vaporized in atomic flame. She hugged Chiyo-chan a little tighter and closed her eyes…

And then, with a blast of cool, sweet air, Gathra's wings burst open above them. Godzilla's beam struck his wooly back and he instantly burst into flame, mute as ever. The Guardian flapped unsteadily away, the fire spreading across his body hideously fast, and crashed into a mostly undamaged street nearby.

Godzilla glanced after him in confusion, looked back at the ground, then, with a flick of his tail and an 'eh, whateva' grunt, he slid into the waves with barely a ripple. Seeing Sendai denuded of monsters (and one of them coming right at them), the American flotilla started to withdraw.

Gathra's body dissolved as he settled down, becoming a bluish-white, glittery powder that puffed out and covered the street in a thin layer for several hundred meters of its length. When the dust settled, two high-pitched, faerie-like voices spoke in unison. "You look a little lost."

"A… a little…" Osaka agreed dazedly.


	15. Normality Afoot?

(A/N: Young Ms. Kasuga explores a question I've always been very interested in here… I apologize if the digression bugs anyone. In any event, your final comments would be appreciated.)

Kaori was jubilant that her friends were all right, of course, but she felt a tad excluded from their celebration. She knew it was stupid after what they'd been through together, but she still couldn't bring herself to feel a part of their group. After an obligatory round of "Hey, you're alive!"s, Kaori slid back into the shadows and contented herself to watch their merriment.

But, looking past them, she saw Prince Xolarus sitting on his rocket's skid with his chin on a fist, watching Sakaki thoughtfully. Biting back a wave of jealousy, she walked quietly towards him, knowing she had to speak with him without knowing what she had to say. On her way, Kaori passed a recently returned Xoltan, who was talking to a small group of white-coated scientists.

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the galaxy's first Bionic Monster. King Ghidora will be that monster. Better than he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster." The scientists nodded avidly, completely unaware that they were taking part in the Third's little joke.

"You're not going to hit me again, are you?" Xolarus asked absently as she neared him.

"Huh? Oh. No, no, I'm sorry about that. I guess… I guess I can't blame you, huh?"

The alien prince smiled slightly. "So tell me, Earthgirl. Why is it that you love her?"

"Well, uh… do I need a reason?" At his look, she hurriedly considered. "Well, I guess it's because she's so… so _wild_."

"Wild?" he asked skeptically, glancing over to the girls. Tomo was demonstrating her awesome strength on anybody who happened to be close enough while Sakaki impassively watched. When the wildcat's chopping hand started to fall towards Chiyo's head, though, the towering girl caught her wrist and said something softly, which made Tomo give way instantly.

"Not wild, so much as… I don't know how else to put it. I mean, Ms. Sakaki is what she is, you know? She's going to go her own way and be herself whatever happens. You can't… domesticate her and make her into what she's not. She's like… like a wolf or something."

"Hmm…" Xolarus leaned his head back. "I can see you've reasoned yours out much better than I have. I just wanted to know… especially since I'll be leaving her to you, or some lucky guy…"

"What?"

"The invasion is off. Our primary weapon has been destroyed, most of our infiltrators have been killed or captured, and besides, my father got impatient just a few hours ago and ordered me home. I'm not going to subject Ms. Sakaki to him or the intrigues of my homeworld. After all, if I can't make her Queen of Earth, I have nothing more to offer her."

"I don't think she'd want to be Queen anyway."

"I got that impression myself."

"Well…" Kaori hesitated, then withdrew a small picture from her pocket. It was one of the photos from the girls' first trip to Chiyo's summer home: Sakaki in her swimsuit, lying in the sand and just noticing the camera as it was taken. Visibly torn, she handed it to him. "I'm sure… I'm sure you'll need this more than me, then."

"Oh, _my!_" he said, snatching it from her. "What's this? How scandalous!"

"H-hey!"

Xolarus stood suddenly and held the picture high when she tried to grab it back. "Oh, Ms. Sakaki?" he called laughingly, "Have you seen what this girl's been carrying around?"

Sakaki glanced over, noticed Kaori's state of extreme embarrassment, and promptly decided to lose interest. Kaori just about melted with gratitude and the Prince seemed only mildly put out, muttering, "Decent sort," under his breath.

"My liege!" a sensor operator yelled, "Earthmen fighters are approaching!"

"I'd better go deal with that," Xolarus said, ruffling her hair. "Thank you very much. Take good care of her, all right?"

"You can…" Kaori didn't quite appreciate the mildly demeaning gesture, but was willing to take it from alien royalty, "Yes, you can count on me."

Before she could rejoin them, though, another bombshell fell on our heroines. A guard approached, leading a much smaller figure towards their cluster. It took them a few seconds to recognize this figure, dressed as it in a pair of jeans with the cuffs and pockets artfully frayed and a black T-shirt with the logo of the movie _Versus_ on its chest. But the faraway, lost look in her eyes was unmistakable, as was her floating, loose walk.

"O-osaka?" Tomo stuttered. "You're… you're all right!"

Osaka stood about four meters off from them and waved, an awkward little smile on her lips. "Hey, guys."

"What's with the crazy clothes?" Kagura asked jovially. "Is this the new Osaka?"

Upon hearing that, the space cadet's smile died and she looked away. Chiyo took a step towards her, concerned. "Ms. Osaka…?" And then Osaka threw her arms around the smaller girl, who accepted this with the aplomb of one who is routinely hugged by complete strangers just for existing. As she returned the hug, Chiyo felt tiny shudders moving through Osaka's body, and neither of them ever knew whether they represented sobbing or laughter.

* * *

It was one of those ponderous, rainy, overcast days of autumn's last gasp, and the friends were walking to school just as they always did. Chiyo, Osaka and Sakaki trudged along together under the heavy clouds, each of them miles away in their minds. It had been a week since their return from war-torn Sendai, and nobody had quite fully recovered.

Osaka, as usual, was the strangest case by far. While she seemed all right most of the time, everyday, simple things seemed to trouble her. And then there was theweird incidentwhere she did well on a test, then responded to Yomi's exclamation of "Who are you and what have you done with the real Osaka?" by bursting into tears and fleeing, thereafter refusing to explain herself.

Sakaki, as ever, was a wall. However she felt about her abortive marriage to the Prince, or his assertion that he and his people would never return, it was kept entirely behind her deep blue eyes. Though, truth be told, in this case she was something of a wall to herself; how _should _she feel?

Chiyo was Chiyo. Natch.

"Say, Chiyo-chan? I been wondering somethin'," Osaka said.

"Yes, Ms. Osaka?"

"How big of a role d'ya suppose our bodies play in definin' us as people?"

"Um…" Chiyo floundered. She'd been expecting something more along the lines of, _Are Hot Dogs made from Dachshunds?_ or _Why do people say "in the meantime?" Why can't it be the "friendlytime?"_ "I'm not…"

"'Cause I was thinkin', there're all these people sayin' that your soul an' body are separate an' what your body is doesn't matter to who y' are… but then, everything you experience goes through your body, right? Y'use it for everything ya do…"

"Where did this come from, if I may ask?"

Osaka paused. "Just bein' hypothetical. But maybe I shouldn't worry 'bout it, huh? We got the bodies we got, and the souls or whatever, an' we are who we are an' it won't change, eh?"

"I suppose not," Chiyo allowed.

"An' besides, we got livin' proof that your body don' define you!" Osaka poked at Sakaki's arm. "'Else how could such a cute soul end up in such a badass body?"

"Er…?" Chiyo glanced between them, helpless to respond.

In spite of herself, Sakaki's expression lightened two shades.

* * *

The next day marked the return of the boys from Okinawa. They were accepted back with hardly a ripple, though just by looking at them one could tell that they took great pride at their part in the recent drama. At lunch, Osaka sought Kazuki out and presented him with something she'd found amidst the ruins of Sendai.

"No way!" he cried, spitting a piece of fish-roll back onto his tray. It bounced off of the little salsa packets he brought to school every day; she felt sick just looking at them. "Where did you…?"

"Eh, around," Osaka answered easily, setting his Shisa on the table. "And y'know? I don't think he looks constipated after all…" (Okay, so I guess his guardianship wasn't ended _forever_… I was just being dramatic.)

"I think he looks damn heroic," Kazuki agreed readily.

"Well, I was about to say he looked like he ate too much curry…"

"You know, _you_ look different, somehow…" her fellow space cadet suddenly said, looking at her in a way that, between them, passed for penetrating. "Younger? No, you look… less… lived-in?"

"You sure say some funny things sometimes," Osaka chuckled.

* * *

_The Shobijin stood together, facing Osaka not in the Astral Plane for once, but in the physical world. Here, she thought, they looked a little like Ami and Yumi Ito, but surely it was just a coincidence. Osaka sat with her knees drawn to her chin, shivering slightly in a harsh, cold wind that somehow failed to stir the sugar-white desert about her._

_"You look a little lost," the Shobijin said together._

_"A… a little," Osaka agreed dazedly. "It, uh, would be nice, I guess, t'know why I'm sittin' stark naked in the middle o' the street."_

_"You gave your life for the Guardian. It looks like he saw fit to return the favor."_

_"Nice o' her--wait, so, so my baby…?"_

_"You rose to the occasion like nobody else in the world ever has and given the Earth a new Guardian. If you wish to think of him as your son, know then that he is on the Astral Plane and will always be ready to fight for Earth again."_

_"But I… never got to see 'im."_

_The Shobijin didn't quite know what to say to that. Finally, Righty said, "Them's the breaks," with a weak grin. Osaka returned it just a little bit stronger. "So, then, uh… how'd ya fix me up? I was pukin' up blood an' the whole bit."_

_"It's less repair," Lefty explained uncomfortably, "And more… uh, replacement."_

_"But how…? So, so my corpse is still on the island?"_

_"Er… yeah."_

_Osaka got quite a morbid thrill out of that. However, the more she thought about it, the more this arrangement troubled her. "How'd this one get made?"_

_"It's like Saint Thomas said," the Shobijin were in synch once more, "The soul is the Form for your body."_

_She looked down at herself in disappointment. "So my soul has small breasts?"_

_Her guides looked at each other uncertainly. "If you want to look at it that way, sure," Lefty finally agreed. Osaka sniffed at her wrist thoughtfully, then, unsatisfied, tried under her arm. "Uh… what are you doing _now?_" _

_"Lookin' for 'that new body smell?'"_

_At that point, Mothra really did slap her astral forehead with a nonexistent hand. "Okay, we're going to leave before talking to you gives us brain-tumors," Righty said. "Listen, there's a clothing store a couple dozen meters that way; given the circumstances, you can be forgiven for looting. It's not the sort of clothes you'd wear normally, but you'll make do, yes?"_

_"Oh," Lefty added, "And don't breathe this powder in. It'll mess you _up!_" With that, the Shobijin vanished and Osaka was alone. She stood unsteadily, and then, conscientiously pausing to rub out her butt-print in the dust, set out.

* * *

_

"Poor girl," Lefty commented.

"She's alive," Righty countered. "What're you getting teary-eyed over now?"

"It must be unnerving. She's seeing everything with new eyes, as it were… we should have told her that there's no significant difference in her body from before. That any differences she might feel or observe are purely psychological."

"Now hold on! I wouldn't call getting rid of that heart condition insignificant!"

"But she didn't… look, you know what I'm getting at. Now, as she continues to grow up, every time something about her changes, she'll have to wonder, _is this because of my new body?_ Especially the, ah, ahem, 'growth spurt' that's coming up…"

"Oh, I think she'll be thrilled about that. Don't worry, sister, the Elder One is watching over her, as well as James Brown and God alone knows how many others…"

"I wonder why the Elder One has such an interest in those girls…?"

"Oh, let's not get involved in _his _plots. That could become… unpleasant."

* * *

In that same week, the second invasion fleet was already well on its way. The Mad Emperor sat in the bridge of his great saucer and watched the blue speck grow in their viewports, happily imagining it turning red and black in desolation. Beneath the vessel soared his own Space Monster, created only recently using the DNA of the Earth monster Godzilla and a crystalline lifeform from Io.

He knew his son was a bleeding-heart romantic, and so wasn't surprised when they met the first signs of resistance long before the Earthmen would even know of their approach. "It was a mistake to let that boy go on his own," he muttered, shaking his head.

In as bold a symbolic gesture as one could hope for, Ghidora soared to meet them and threw open his wings, eclipsing the Earth from their view. The monster had been outfitted with a Space Titanium plate across his chest, great metallic wings, shining blades at the ends of his tails, a prosthetic head (man, that sounds weird,) and, more to pull the look together than anything else, metallic greaves.

"Interesting…"

Ghidora shrieked, the left and right heads bellowing emptily into the void… but when the center head opened its mouth, a blast of interference roared through all the screens on the bridge and the sensor guy screamed, throwing his headset to the ground. "My liege! Our weapon's guidance systems are shot!" Tactical yelled, "We're helpless!"

"It doesn't matter," the Mad Emperor roared, rising from his chair and pointing heroically, "Space Godzilla will crush him anyway! Attack!" The horrible blue creature unfolded from its crystalline shell and rushed forth to meet the Metal Space Demon.

In a cockpit at the base of Ghidora's center head, Prince Xolarus braced himself. He took up the picture of Sakaki and permitted himself one last warm thought. _It's for your world and your people…_ he kissed the picture and set it back. Then, with a wild yell, he grabbed a pair of throttles before him and shoved them forward, launching his own monster to the attack. "YAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Except that there was no second invasion, Earth would never know the outcome.

* * *

"Well," Xethnex said dryly, "That's that."

"Yep," Xoltan agreed. The officers of the First Invasion sat around a low, oddly spaceage table, sipping Space Champaign from vessels one could only assume were Space Goblets. "That is most definitely that."

"So, what do we do next? Owing to our Prince's stunt here, it's possible that we'll all be executed or at least imprisoned for life."

"Sir!" yet _another _panicked underling cried, "King Ghidora's center head! It's falling towards Earth!"

"Who _is_ this guy?" Xethnex asked in exasperation.

"He's an asshole, sir," Xoltan replied, proving once again that they should have banned him from Earthling broadcasts long ago. "He's Major—_agaa!_"

"That wasn't funny the last five times. Forget about the head; there's nothing we can do about that… as I was saying, there's a very real chance we'll all be executed for treason. Should we return?"

"I think we have to," Xoltan said, suddenly serious. "We all signed on knowing what this job would entail, after all, and what would happen if we failed."

"Well…" the Keeper corrected uneasily, "Not _all _of us…" The others looked to him and nodded knowingly. He was right to be concerned.

As if to break the mood, Agent Xond glanced into his goblet in mild disappointment, commenting, "I wanted this stirred, not shaken." None of them could figure out why Xoltan exploded into peals of laughter.

* * *

"What the hell are you talking about?" Yasuhiro Mihama growled over the phone. "Nothing has gone wrong with the plan yet!"

"Oh, but it could," the man from SSS9 replied smoothly, "It could. You have to admit, you're not very good at keeping secrets. In fact, I'll bet that you forgot to turn your speaker-phone off again, and everybody in the room can hear what I'm saying."

Grumbling, Mihama snapped it off. "Nobody was in the room anyway."

"Well, you never know who might overhear our chats. Your little daughter, for instance. I hear she has a penchant for asking awkward questions, and that she's too smart by half. I wonder how that could have come about, hmm?"

"You leave her out of this!" he snapped. Meanwhile, in the hall, Chiyo stiffened. She'd just been on her way to bring him a document that he'd left on the kitchen table when she overheard the SSS9 man's ominous voice and stopped outside the door. It was against her nature to eavesdrop, but this conversation…

"No, _you're _the one who doesn't understand his situation!" Mr. Mihama's voice was like steel. "No. No! Listen to me, you blustering dolt, I _built _Mihama Industries and SSS9 with my _bare hands, _and so help me, I can _tear them down!_ If you harm so much as _one hair _on my daughter's head, _I will see you burn!_" The phone slammed into its receiver. Three or four times.

Though shaken, Chiyo still thought to give him a five-count before entering. "Father, I found this on the- _uff!_" Without saying anything, her father wrapped her in a thunderous hug, holding on as if he'd never let go. In the face of this and the frightening conversation, Chiyo decided that she wasn't so curious as to whom Mihama Industries was building Mechagodzilla for after all…

Still, when Mr. Mihama had calmed down, she couldn't help but ask, "Father, why is Mr. Alphonse on the veranda with a shotgun?"

"Huh?"

"And Mr. Tadakichi is acting strangely. He keeps barking up the trees."

"Oh!" Yasuhiro laughed easily. "Don't worry about that. It'll sort itself out sooner or later." This time, she believed him.

* * *

To Osaka, it was a similar feeling to the time she'd had to take Biology. Every time she drew a breath, it seemed like she could feel every single individual alveoli fill with air. Every time her heart beat, she imagined all of those little muscle fibers contracting, and then the blood rushing through her arteries as the pressure slowly faded down her limbs. And actually _moving? _That was a _real _trip.

Late at night, when it was at its worst, she felt like her body would simply fly apart, that it was too complex to actually work and she'd just dissolve into a blob of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids.

When she'd made the mistake of confiding her discomfort in Tomo, the wildcat idiot had responded by following her around with the textbook, reading passages aloud. "Oh, hey, Osaka! Did you know that there are cavities in your brain full of cerebrospinal fluid? I mean, can you imagine that? _Holes _in your _brain?_"

This case was a little more extreme. But whatever may have changed since her resurrection, it turned out that it wasn't any easier to pay attention in Yukari's class. She sat staring out the window and the heavy clouds, a pen absently whirling through her fingers as her brain spun with strange thoughts and feelings.

Her brain! It was a _different _one now! And the little voice that was telling her not to worry because the former seat of her consciousness was now a pile of steaming hamburger boiling into nothing a couple hundred kilometers away surely wasn't helping. "Hey, Osaka?" Kagura asked. "What're you doing, there?"

Osaka glanced over to her neighbor, then down at her fingers, which were still deftly turning the pen. "Ack!" It flew from her fingers, skipped off the desk—then she _caught _it before it fell to the floor. Osaka stared at the pen for a few seconds as if it were a poisonous adder and then cried, "Augh! It's just too _weird!_" Her head thumped to the desk.

"Uh…" Kagura looked back and forth between her neighbor and Yukari, who hadn't even noticed the student's outburst. "Are you… are you okay?"

"Fine," Osaka sulked, "Le'me alone."

"Are you interested to meet the new student?"

She sat up. "New what?"

"Didn't you hear? An American's coming to school here. Kinda sucks that it happened so late in her Senior Year, huh?"

"Yeah…" In point of fact, the new girl was just entering. It seemed that Ms. Yukari had learned her lesson from trying to introduce the Osakan gal, and didn't try to get her to do or say anything stereotypically American. In fact, it seemed that Yukari just couldn't be bothered. "This is Sandra Blueman," the teacher said tonelessly. "Be nice to her and stuff. Okay, take a seat."

"It's very nice to meet you all," Sandra said in flawless Japanese, bowing slightly. She was about Tomo's height, fairly pretty, with long sandy hair and sea-green eyes. Osaka wondered idly if anybody else noticed that her eyes caught light like a cat's. Sakaki might have; she was staring in absolute shock, as if she'd seen a ghost.

Sandra started into the room, and almost at once made contact with Osaka. The "American" had stopped right in the middle of a window's light, so her eyes blazed like molten copper as they stared at each other. After a second or two, Osaka smirked slightly and a thoroughly unnerved Sandra continued on her way. She took an empty seat next to Sakaki and smiled shyly to her.

_Funny how these things work out, _Osaka thought happily.

_"Aww… you're such a baby, Xan. Come on, what's there to be upset about? What have I ever done for you? I've been a lousy brother. It'll be all right. You'll be happy there, trust me. Earth is a wonderful place… you'll see."

* * *

_

And we join the girls one last time, as they gather for a sleepover at the home of Chiyo-chan. Tomo, Yomi, Sakaki, Kagura and Osaka were all gathered in the main room, the two taller girls reading as the Bonkuras played _GTA _on the Mihama's 60-inch plasma screen TV. "It's a helicopter!" Tomo protested. "How're you gonna get it with that sword?"

"I'll figure it out," Osaka shrugged.

Bored with hectoring the marauding criminal, Tomo hopped back onto the couch and jabbed a finger into Yomi's belly. "What's _this?_ Haven't you been on a diet?"

Yomi lowered her book and spoke with icy dignity. "After certain experiences, I've decided that I have more important things to worry about than a few calories," she said archly.

Tomo jabbed her stomach again, but when it became apparent that Yomi refused to be baited, she applied herself to figuring out a way to annoy Kagura. From the nearby kitchen, there came the sound of Chiyo singing _The Cooking Song,_ or, as Tomo called it, _Let's stab Chiyo-chan._ "Cooking is so fun / cooking is so fun / now let's take a break and see what we have done!"

"Okay," Sandra called cheerfully, "It's ready!"

Sandra had taken to cooking the same way Yomi had taken to singing… in fact, she'd taken to food in general, and was starting to become just a _tiny_ bit plump. Naturally, this made her a favorite of Mrs. Mizuhara's. Unfortunately for their mutual friends, Sandra and Chiyo conspired so that whenever they presented something together, the others would never know which of them had made it. It surely made get-together mealtimes a lot more interesting.

As they started towards the dining room, Yomi pulled Sakaki aside, the move covered by the noise of passing Bonkuras. "Ms. Sakaki," she said without preamble, "Just what have you done to Kaori?" Sakaki looked surprised and confused, but otherwise didn't reply. "She seems really upset all the time and she's been avoiding you like the plague. I didn't want to butt in, but you've got to sort this out!"

"I…" Sakaki faltered.

"I'm sorry," Yomi patted her shoulder. "I should've been more tactful, but Kaori's really hurting. Do you mind telling me what's going on?"

"Well… she… that is…"

"That's easy," Tomo said slyly, sliding along the wall back to them. "Kaori has a forbidden love for Andrea, here!" If Sakaki's gaze had been a gravity beam, Tomo's reaction could hardly have been more gratifying. She all but sprinted back the way she'd come, leaving Yomi to look after her in annoyance. "Oh, you idiot…"

"Hey, c'mon you guys!" Kagura called, "Food!"

"Well, we can talk about this later, right?" Yomi asked. Sakaki nodded resignedly, and the friends left together to play Russian Roulette with their dinner.

* * *

And deep in the shadowy offices of his underground hideout, the man from SSS9 smiled. There were three objects on his desk that his organization had gone through great pains to collect for him, and now that they were assembled, his plans would finally come to fruition.

The first was a vial of the Mihama girl's blood, obtained at small cost from their family doctor. The second was a vial of pale green blood, that of Godzilla, obtained at great personal risk from the ruins of Sendai. The last was a single, genetically perfect, long-stemmed blue rose.

"Oh, Yasuhiro…" he sighed, "You and your empty threats. How will you feel when you find out that you've _created_ this monster?"

**Finis**


End file.
